Notes from yeerbook.
Guides and thoughts on memory, intention, and permanence.
Why we stop making yearbooks after high school (and how to fix it)
High school yearbooks worked because of a shared monoculture. In adulthood, our paths hyper-individualize. Here is why the standardized yearbook died, and how personal yearbooks bring back the magic of notes, signatures, and shared memories.
The Yearbook Cliff: why groups, teams, and communities stop keeping memories (and how to fix it)
We experience some of our most defining chapters in adulthood, from sports teams to startup cohorts, yet we completely stop making yearbooks. Here is why groups hit the yearbook cliff, and how decentralized co-creation fixes it.
Digital amnesia: why your smartphone is making you forget your favorite moments
Cognitive science reveals that saving thousands of photos actually tricks the brain into forgetting. Here is why digital amnesia happens, and how to fix it.
The paper anniversary: why your first year together deserves more than a framed print
The traditional first anniversary gift is paper. Here is why documenting the unpolished reality of your first year together creates a keepsake that outlasts traditional gifts.
The camera-roll graveyard: why saving 20,000 photos means remembering none of them
Frictionless digital storage removed the constraint that made memory curation valuable. Here is why your camera roll feels like a chore, and how to turn digital clutter into memories that actually last.
The keepsake economy: why we're paying for permanence in an ephemeral world
From vinyl records to printed yearbooks, the return to tangible objects is not just nostalgia, but a rebellion against zero-marginal-cost digital fatigue.
Mixbook vs. Shutterfly vs. Chatbooks vs. Artifact Uprising vs. yeerbook: how long does a photo book actually take to make?
Mixbook, Shutterfly, Chatbooks, and Artifact Uprising all sell you the printing. Here's the part none of them put in the ad: the hours of manual layout, and what a comparable book actually costs.
Four ways people actually use yeerbook
There's no one right way to build a yeerbook. Here are the four patterns people actually use, from adding a memory the day it happens to building the whole year in one sitting.
The year abroad stops feeling like a trip, and starts feeling like your life.
Relocation research describes a predictable curve: a honeymoon stretch, a hard middle, then a turn where a new country starts to feel ordinary.
Expats make friends faster than almost anyone, and lose track of them just as fast.
Research on expat social patterns describes a real "expat bubble" effect, and quietly, why those fast friendships are some of the easiest to lose.
Expat or digital nomad? It changes how you should document the year.
They get lumped together constantly, but a stable job abroad and a life with no fixed address call for different ways of keeping a record of the year.
How to make a personal yearbook
The 4 creation rhythms, how to navigate layout and signing friction, and how to choose the right approach for your year.
Yearbook ideas for adults: 20 pages worth making when no one's organizing it for you anymore
School handed you a yearbook every year without asking. Nobody does that once you're an adult. Here are 20 page ideas worth making anyway.
Year in review ideas: 25 questions to help you remember your year
Specific questions work better than a general one. 25 of them, grouped by what happened, who was there, and what changed.
Why you never look at your digital photos (but you'd flip through a real album)
Research on physical and digital mementos found something consistent: physical objects get revisited, valued, and remembered. Digital ones mostly don't.
Why taking more photos might be making you remember less
A well-documented psychology effect shows that photographing an experience can make you remember it worse, not better.
How to build a journaling habit that actually sticks
Most journaling habits fail for the same handful of predictable reasons. Here's what actually makes people keep going.
Personal yearbook vs. journaling app: what's actually different
A journaling app is good at capturing how you felt, alone. A personal yearbook adds the photo, and the people who were there.
Best gifts for a milestone birthday, anniversary, or graduation
Candles, spa days, and gift cards are easy and forgettable. Here's what actually makes a gift feel meaningful for a milestone year.
Best photo book apps in 2026 (and when you might want something different)
An honest look at Mixbook, Shutterfly, Chatbooks, and Artifact Uprising, and when a personal yearbook fits better.
How to make your own yearbook (a real step-by-step guide)
A real, honest comparison of doing it digitally with Canva, entirely by hand, or with yeerbook, and where each path gets harder than it sounds.
How to build your yeerbook, start to finish
A complete walkthrough of building your own yeerbook, from your first page to the finished, printed book.
Your year in review deserves a better home than a screenshot
Your Spotify Wrapped and Instagram Best Nine are good ingredients, not a finished year in review.
Your year in review shouldn't just be a Spotify playlist
Spotify Wrapped and Instagram Recap show you what you consumed, not what actually happened.
Personal yearbook vs. photo album: what's actually different
A photo album collects your photos. A personal yearbook collects the year around them.
Why we call it "yeerbook" (not "yearbook")
Yeerbook comes from two ideas at once: an old spelling of "year," and a nod to "peer."
The best excuse to text an old friend? Ask them to sign your yearbook.
Tagging someone to sign a page is a much easier message to send than "we should catch up."
Social media promised connection. Instead, it gave us an audience.
Why the realest moments of your year never make it to a feed, and what to do with them instead.
What is a personal yearbook?
The modern annual memory book: how it works, and how it differs from a photo book or journal.