Student Designed Yearbook Cover Has Hidden Message
I am very proud of this kid. First, it’s a nice illustration and people just don’t use illustrations as much as they should. Second, it’s a MAJOR coup to sneak a dirty word onto the cover of a publication and get it printed. Third, he still got his diploma, so he got away with the prank. My hat is off to you kid!
In the graphic design world, sneaking in dirty stuff often happens when people get burned by a client and/or are moving on. I’ve seen a newspaper ad for a sporting goods store that read “you’ll ski like a faggot in these boots.” Then there’s the illustrator who was tired of his slow to pay aerosol packaging client. When he turned in his final illustration of lush tropical florals in bright pinks and oranges for an air freshner he clipped a penis out of a porno mag and stuck it in the middle of a hibicus and the cans were printed, with the penis flower.
I also love the phrase the kid chose.
It's been blurred but reads "Fuck all yall"
Link to a video that may or may not work.
‘F’ word found on Yearbook cover
UPI | June 15, 2009
An Ohio high school principal said yearbook distribution has been suspended because “an obscenity was cleverly concealed in the cover artwork.”
Shaker Heights High School Principal Michael Griffith wrote in a letter to students and parents that the cover of the yearbook, which featured a gathering of the school’s “Red Raider” mascots, also contained a farewell message featuring the “F” word, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Monday.
Griffith wrote that “cosmetic surgery” is being performed on the books to block out the offending phrase and offered to remove the phrase from any previously sold copies.
However, the students of the school did not seem perturbed by the “farewell message” — the artist, who wrote a letter of apology that was affixed to the principal’s letter, received the loudest and longest ovation at his Thursday graduation ceremony, the Plain Dealer said.
Student apologizes after hiding profanity on cover of high school yearbook
2009 Student Press Law Center | June 18, 2009 | Brian Stewart, SPLC staff writer
OHIO — A student tasked with designing the cover of an Ohio high school yearbook slipped some profanity into the image, forcing administrators to temporarily halt distribution.
The cover of Gristmill, the yearbook at Shaker Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio, featured a hand-drawn image of a crowd of “red raiders” — the school’s Trojan-like mascot. When flipped upside down, the phrase “Fuck All Y’All” is hidden within the sea of red ink.
But the message is hidden so well that even district Spokeswoman Peggy Caldwell said she would not have noticed it until someone pointed it out to her.
“In no way are the editors or the adviser to be faulted, in my view,” she said. “There is no way the adviser or the editors could have seen the message in there.”
Either the yearbook’s student editors or the adviser, who is also an art teacher, commissioned the artwork, Caldwell said.
School officials discovered the phrase after the artist told some friends, one of whom showed the hidden message to a teacher.
Shaker Heights Principal Michael Griffith stopped distribution of the book and notified parents with a letter.
“Distribution of this year’s Gristmill was suspended when the faculty and administrators learned that an obscenity was cleverly concealed in the cover artwork,” Griffith wrote in the June 4 letter.
By that point, about half of the yearbooks had been handed out, Caldwell said.
Griffith wrote remaining yearbooks were undergoing “cosmetic surgery to camouflage the offensive language.” Caldwell said that consisted of an art teacher and two students using Sharpie markers to “put enough extra squiggles in to camouflage the language.”
In the same letter to the school community, the cover artist issued an apology.
“I cannot begin to explain the miserable feeling I brought upon myself, when I betrayed the trust of all of you. I apologize for offending anyone and everyone,” the unnamed student wrote. “It is unfortunate that I did not recognize the big responsibility and honor given to me when asked to design the cover of the Shaker Heights yearbook.”
Caldwell said the artist was, to her knowledge, the only person who knew about the hidden phrase before publication. He was forced to make a financial restitution to the district and clean the art room for a week, which Caldwell added, “is not real pleasant.”
“The consequences fit the circumstances, and he was remorseful,” Caldwell said. “I think the resolution was the right one.”
Caldwell noted the district is the publisher of the yearbook but has a “long standing tradition of letting the students run it.” Officials do not censor student work, she added.
A secretary for Griffith referred comment to Caldwell.