Conceptual projectPrintedPublication

GLS Annual Yearbook

A printed annual yearbook and digital archive for GLS Institute of Design, with an augmented reality layer that opens extended content from the page.

Role: Art director, content editor, print production
Timeline: 4 weeks
Guides: Prof. Hardik Shiroya · Prof. Xavier D'Silva
Tools: InDesignIllustratorArtvive AR

28 × 20 cmTrim size

100 GSMStandard paper

OffsetPrinting, perfect bound

4 weeksBrief to print

Overview

A book that frames the students' work and stays out of its way.

Brief

The institute had no space, physical or digital, to showcase student and alumni achievements each year. That absence was the brief.

My part

Art direction, content editing and print production, all three at once.

Result

A printed yearbook distributed within the institute, documenting the full year's creative output across all departments.

Context

How can a book build meaning?

GLS Institute of Design lacked a dedicated space, physical or digital, to showcase student and alumni achievements annually. There was no cohesive platform to document patents, publications, awards, or the creative work produced across disciplines each year. That absence was the brief.

The project was to create an engaging and visually compelling annual yearbook and digital archive platform to capture, celebrate, document, and showcase the creative journey and accomplishments of GLS Institute of Design throughout the year. The book needed to serve as both a keepsake and a repository, a record that students and faculty could refer back to.

The contents spread: Graphic Design, Animation Film Design, Digital Film Making and Combined Courses as four stepped bands over faded student work, each listing its courses and page numbers.

The contents spread: four disciplines as stepped bands.

Design system

The design system stayed quiet so the students' work could be loudest.

The visual language was built to be minimal, concise, and clean. The design system needed to stay quiet enough that the students' own work could be the loudest thing on every spread.

TypeAvenir Next LT ProChosen as the primary typeface for its neutrality and legibility at small sizes.

ColourNeutral structure, vibrant panelsBlack, white, and warm grays for the structure, with vibrant colored panels reserved for the students' work.

MotifBrackets []Used throughout as a recurring motif, assigning symbolic meaning to each discipline category.

Grid

One grid that changes with the page.

LayoutThe layout alternated between a column grid for text-heavy pages and a modular grid for portfolio spreads. This gave the book a consistent rhythm while accommodating the variety of student work, from photography to product design to illustration.

Two wireframe diagrams of the 40 by 28 cm spread grid on black, a column grid and a modular grid, beside a tight crop of the softbound cover and its heavy grey ANNUAL DESIGN YEAR lockup.

The two grids on a 40 × 28 cm spread, and the cover lockup.

Spreads

A frame for work from every discipline.

Every spread was proofed and color-corrected before the final print run.

An Illustration spread: Semester 3, 2 weeks, with watercolour and mixed-media crab and fish studies, a framed collage, and a digital illustration of a blue creature.

A book cover design spread: The Curse of the Chameleon, How the Rhino Got His Skin, and The Seal Catcher, each with a short rationale.

A spread on the film Qala: teal butterfly-mask illustrations and stills on the left, and a page of text above an arrangement of moths on the right.

A deep-red animation film spread: frames of a forest scene, an owl, an open book and storyboard thumbnails, with a QR code at the lower left.

A black digital film spread: stills of a paper bird and nest, a rotary telephone, and a leaf-and-bird set, with a QR code at the lower left.

The faculty spread for Visual Communication Design: a black-and-white group photograph above the names and roles of professors.

AR layer

Scan a page, and the book keeps going.

An augmented reality layer was built using Artvive, allowing readers to scan specific pages and access additional content, video walkthroughs, process documentation, and extended project narratives, through their phone. This bridged the physical book with a digital archive.

Scanning the cover: the AR artwork blooms in.

The book opening to its half-title spread.

Outcome

A printed record.

The yearbook was printed and distributed within the institute. It documented the full year's creative output across all departments, serving as both a reference and a celebration of the work produced.

"The book felt like a visual journal for all the work done within the institute."Foundation student

"The AR introduction felt very new and fascinating to look at!"Faculty review

The AR layer gave the book a second life beyond print, allowing viewers to access extended content without adding page count. Studying Josef Müller-Brockmann's "Grid Systems" during the project deepened my understanding of how structure and white space work together to give content room to breathe.

Takeaways

What I took away.

Print needs a different kind of restraint than screen. The book's job was to frame the students' work, not compete with it. Neutral typography and a quiet color system made the vibrant portfolio pieces feel intentional, not chaotic.
Grid discipline makes a 100-page book feel like one object instead of a collection of unrelated spreads. The column-to-modular grid switch gave the layout flexibility without breaking consistency.
AR added a digital layer without complicating the physical experience. The technology was invisible until the reader chose to engage with it.
Decisions cascade across domains. Managing art direction, content editing, and print production simultaneously built a working understanding of that. A type change on page 12 can break the grid on page 40.