Yearbook Cover · shipped, staff-only cover designer · same platform as your book
Design your book’s cover in the same platform that prints it.
Your cover is not a separate tool bolted onto your yearbook -- it is one wrap, front panel, back panel, and a computed spine, composed from photo, color, and text blocks over a four-role palette (base, accent, ink, paper) so your school’s colors carry the whole design. The spine previews true to scale, tied to your book’s real page count and binding, and export runs through the exact same render pipeline as the rest of your book -- no separate export tool, no format mismatch.
You are viewing the overview at yearbookcover.art. Money is honest-off on this page: no pricing, no checkout, no card charged -- every control that would run a real action either opens the real, authenticated app or is shown here as an inert, disabled mockup.
Part of your book, not a separate tool
The cover designer is built into the same platform that already runs your book’s interior page layout, roster, and print export -- not a bolt-on app you have to learn separately or export out of and back in. Start from a curated gallery template or your school’s own saved design, compose the front panel, the back panel, and the spine with your own photos, colors, and words, then link the finished design to your book. Print export runs through the same pipeline as the rest of the book: one job, one PDF, no separate tool and no format mismatch to reconcile.
How a wrap is actually composed
Front, back, and spine -- one wrap
A cover document is three panels: front, back, and a spine computed from your book, never stored as a fixed number. Each panel holds a stack of blocks you place and edit yourself.
Three block types, fractional geometry
A photo block, a solid-color block, or a text block. Every block’s frame is fractional (0 to 1) inside its panel, so the layout holds at any print size. A text block can bind directly to your book’s actual title or subtitle, so a rename updates the cover automatically instead of going stale.
Palette-role theming, not one-off hex values
Four roles -- base, accent, ink, and paper -- drive every block’s color on the whole wrap. Change the palette once and every panel re-themes together, instead of hunting down individual color pickers.
A spine estimate tied to your real page count
Saddle-stitched books have no flat spine panel. For perfect and case binding, the spine width is computed from your book’s real interior page count: an estimated 0.002252in of paper bulk per page, plus a 0.25in board/hinge allowance for case binding. That number is always labeled an estimate and paired with a note pointing you at your print vendor’s own spine calculator before you submit a job -- never presented with false precision.
Preview, then export -- through one honest pipeline
A preview render goes through the platform’s real assemble-preflight-render pipeline. A preview image is only ever saved from a successful render -- never fabricated if the render fails. Export builds a print-ready PDF for your book from one of three honest sources, checked in order:
- Uploaded cover art -- if you supply front/back art directly, that art is the cover.
- A linked, designed template -- otherwise, if your book is linked to a cover you composed here, that design is hydrated into the export.
- Typed-title fallback -- otherwise, the book falls back to a typed-title cover, exactly the unchanged, longstanding behavior for a book with no linked cover. No template ever means no cover.
If your book’s stored trim size does not match what the export call expects, that is a warning attached to the response, not a block on your export. And export is fail-closed: if the render engine or storage is unavailable, you get a real error, never a fabricated "ready" status over dead bytes.
This is a static mockup of the export control, shown inert on this marketing page -- it does not run anything.
Start from the gallery, or your school’s own designs
The template gallery is a curated, global, read-only set of starting-point templates alongside every design your own school has saved -- the same list the cover designer loads. Duplicate a gallery template to start editing without touching the shared original, or open one of your school’s own saved designs directly. See the full front/back/spine model, the free base style directions, and the named premium packs on the gallery page →
What is free, and what is a premium pack
We are not going to invent a commercial tier name for this page. The real model is plan-tier based: the base editor, the base template gallery, palette theming, the spine estimate, preview render, and print export are free with every plan, forever -- stated platform doctrine, not a promotional offer. Premium packs (curated theme, font, and surface-system add-ons) are a separate, curated catalog layered on top: browsing is always free, and applying a pack to your school is a plan-gated action available on the paid studio tier -- never a separate cart or per-item checkout. See the gallery page for the named packs and their illustrative catalog anchors.
No AI generates a cover -- here or anywhere in the shipped product
Every block on every panel is placed and edited by you: a photo you choose, a color you pick, words you write. There is no AI image-generation lane anywhere in the cover designer today. Whether to ever build one is a pending founder and API decision, not a built feature this page is choosing not to link to -- so this page does not tease a sample output or link you to a working AI feature, because there is not yet one to link to.
Staff-only, consent-gated by construction
The cover designer is a staff-only surface: only an adviser, co-adviser, or school/district admin can open it, and no minor-held role can reach it -- that check runs deny-first, before anything else. Any photo placed on a cover panel already lives in your school’s existing consent-gated photo Library; the cover designer adds no new consent mechanism of its own and this page claims none. Nothing on this page is, or shows, a real student photo -- every preview above is a CSS-built palette-and-geometry mockup.
Common questions
Can I design or export a cover right on this page?
No. Money and live export are honest-off on yearbookcover.art itself -- this marketing page holds no cookie or session, has no account or live checkout, and uses no third-party advertising or tracking scripts; nothing here runs a real export or a real purchase. Basic short-lived operational logs may record page requests. The export button above is a literal, inert, disabled mockup. Sign in to the real, authenticated app to design and export a cover.
Is the spine width shown here exact?
No, and we say so throughout: for perfect and case binding it is a computed estimate from your page count and binding, always labeled an estimate, with a note pointing you at your print vendor's own spine calculator before you submit a job.
What happens if I do not design a cover at all?
Your book falls back to a typed-title cover -- the same longstanding behavior it always had. No template ever means no cover; export never blocks on a missing design.
Does AI generate any part of the cover?
No. There is no AI cover-generation anywhere in the shipped product today. Every block is placed and edited by you.
What is a premium pack?
A curated add-on catalog (theme, font, and surface-system packs) layered on top of the free base editor. Browsing the catalog is free; applying a pack to your school is a plan-gated action, not a purchase completed on this page.
Will I see a real student's photo on this page?
No, never. Every preview card on this page is a CSS-only palette-and-geometry mockup, not a photo. Any real student photo used in an actual cover already lives in your school's existing consent-gated photo Library.
Who can actually use the cover designer?
Staff only -- an adviser, co-adviser, or school/district admin. No minor-held role can reach it; that check runs deny-first, ahead of anything else.
Related surfaces
See the full cover template gallery for the free base style directions and the named premium packs. homeroom.software is the flagship platform brand home and the full product story behind the cover designer this page describes.
What is built, and what this page will not pretend
The cover designer, the front/back/spine panel model, palette-role theming, the binding-aware spine estimate, the preview render, and the print export are all built and running today, not early access. The base editor and base template gallery are free with every plan, forever, by platform doctrine. Premium theme/font/surface packs are a real, curated, plan-gated catalog, never a per-item cart or checkout. Money and export are honest-off on this page itself: no pricing, no checkout, no card charged, no subscription -- the export button above is a literal disabled control. No AI generates a cover, here or anywhere in the shipped product today. The cover designer is staff-only, deny-first against any minor-held role, and this page never shows or claims a real student photo. No cookies are set by this marketing surface. It uses no third-party advertising or tracking scripts and builds no behavioral profile. Basic short-lived operational logs may record page requests.