About yeerbook.
When I was younger, a year felt long. A school year had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and you could tell where you were in it.
Somewhere along the way, that changed. The years started to blur together. Ask me what I did in March, and I honestly couldn’t tell you. Then suddenly, it’s December again.
When I look back on a year, I can’t find it. There’s no physical proof that it happened, and the moments and people that made my year special are scattered across my camera roll, notes, and a dozen group chats. Thousands of screenshots, receipts, and random photos, with the real moments buried somewhere inside.
Social media wasn’t the answer either. I’ve mostly stepped back from it for several years, but even when I used it, it was an edited version of my life, built for an audience rather than the people who were actually part of it. It never showed who I was at the time, or the people and moments that actually mattered to me. An inside joke or a quiet afternoon that meant something deeply never made it online.
As we move to different places and our lives get busier, it gets harder and harder to keep in touch.
I’ve lived abroad for more than 15 years and see my family and close friends about once a year, sometimes less. Each time, I can really feel time slipping by: my parents are getting older, with more wrinkles, and my friends are getting married, having kids, and reaching new milestones.
I wish we could share the moments between our reunions with our loved ones. Not the group chat reactions, and not the polished social media posts, but the moments that meant something to us. The ones that let us keep learning about each other and see how everyone is growing, even across distances before we meet again.
I wanted a way to bring the important parts of my year together in something physical, with the people who matter leaving their mark. I wanted a way to stay close to family and friends as our lives unfolded, creating something we could look back on years later.
So I made yeerbook.
A yeerbook is a yearbook for a meaningful chapter of life, printed as a beautiful hardcover to treasure and hold. It keeps your photos and words, and gives the people who shared that chapter a place to leave their mark, through signatures, drawings, and notes.
You can make one on your own, for a chapter that’s already behind you or one that’s still unfolding, with friends and family leaving their mark along the way.
Or you can make one together, with your family or a group of friends. Each month, everyone shares a short recap, and a week later they all appear at once, so you can share the moments in between and stay part of each other’s lives, wherever you are.
Either way, it ends as something you can hold: a hardcover of your year, or the year you shared, made of the moments and people who shaped it.
Maybe it’s nostalgia. I miss physical things that held memories, like my high school yearbook, which I could pick up years later and flip through. What made it worth keeping wasn’t just the photos. It was the people who signed it, and the memories attached to their words.
Long before schools made yearbooks, people were already keeping books of friends and memories and asking the people who mattered to leave their mark. I wanted to bring that idea back, beyond school and into the rest of our lives.
“Yeer” is an old spelling of “year,” and it’s also a nod to “peer”: your year, and the people who shared it, in one book.
I’m building yeerbook by myself, and I’m making one of my own with the people closest to me. If we ever cross paths and share a meaningful memory, I’d be glad to have you sign my book.
If any of this resonates with you, I’d love for you to make a yeerbook of your own, for yourself, your family, or your friends.
Life moves quickly. I hope yeerbook helps us hold on to more of what matters, and stay a little closer to the people who share our lives.
Your year. Your people. One book, bound and signed.
