Editor’s Note: The Yearbook Studios shop closed in 2018, but Jef continues to design interiors and brand identities for many of the Chicago areas most stylish spaces.
Following Yearbook Studios on Instagram feels like visiting a secret private club, part classic Ivy League dormitory, part Paris flea market, with a dash of the Gryffindor common room for magical effect. Walking through the front door I felt immediately at home. This place gets me. Now in its fourth year in business, Yearbook Studios has become a beacon of style and sophistication in the popular Forest Park business district. It was my distinct pleasure to interview Jef Anderson, one of Yearbook’s founders, to learn more about this special place.
How would you describeYearbook Studios and your unique collection of products?
The Yearbook Store was originally conceived as a combination of distinctive vintage furnishings and objects combined with new and original products. Over the past four years, the store has grown to include more Yearbook original designs and private label items. These pieces are seamlessly combined to feel at home with each other and within the store itself. We hope to provide a comfortable environment that feels familiar to all who visit, regardless of personal taste. We take advantage of the best and most unusual designs from the early 20th century and work to weave those pieces together in unique ways that engage individuals and demonstrate that diverse designs can be combined to create interesting environments.
What is the inspiration for the Yearbook brand?
Yearbook started as the brainchild of me and Noel Eberline. I’m a designer and stylist and love all beautiful things regardless of their origin. I believe in creating environments and brands that transcend any time period and engage people in what intrigues them the most: a feeling. We all love to be understood by others and when we find ourselves basking in the familiar, we only want more of it. Like falling in love for the first time, we trust everything. Yearbook is not only a store and a design studio, but a labor of love, celebrating the human spirit and how design speaks to us all. There is an overarching warmth that defines the Yearbook brand with an underlying message that learning from design, style, communication, and human emotion is an endless journey.
You’ve worked with some great American companies over the years. What are some of your favorite product collaborations?
Creating new and exciting products is something we strive to do each year. We have had the privilege of working with the Homer Laughlin China Company in West Virginia on a number of Yearbook original plate and diner mug designs. It has been great working with the oldest restaurant ware company still in existence, producing all their wares in the U.S. Their attention to quality and detail is unsurpassed and makes each of our original, limited edition pieces that much better. We have also collaborated with Faribault Woolen Mill in Minnesota to create the Yearbook Stadium Blanket which we released the first year we were open, as well as our patch blankets from last year. Faribault has always been very accommodating and they continue to create beautiful blankets which we sell year-round. We also created a private-label line of candles with a company in Vermont. We concept and name each of the scents and they have been extremely successful. Our collaborations continue to grow with custom-designed beer pints, flasks, bags, etc. We hope to develop a wholesale offering of some original Yearbook designs within the next couple years as well.
There is so much to see in the Yearbook Studios store, and much more happening behind the scenes. Tell us about your design work and your mission to build awareness and craft the image of Forest Park businesses.
Our design work ranges from interior design for private residential clients to business interiors to brand development, websites and printed collateral for a variety of clients. We are frequently approached by both individuals and businesses that relate to the Yearbook aesthetic, as well as our sensitivity to brand messaging and attention to detail. During 2015, we developed a new brand identity and website for the Forest Park Chamber of Commerce which serves not only to its members but acts as the online visitors center to downtown Forest Park. We are designing a unique tasting room along with a local architect for a new craft brewery in Oak Park, slated to open late this year. In addition, we are developing a new brand and website for a team of local artists who produce extraordinary pottery, metals and textiles, a new website for a known jewelry designer from New York, and we recently signed on to redesign the boyhood attic bedroom of Ernest Hemingway to become a more distinctive guest room with nuances from Hemingway’s life—also located in Oak Park. We had the privilege of working with the Forest Park Public Library to develop a wonderful Summer Program which promoted the library through interesting events with local businesses. We are continuing to work with the Library to design their Centennial Celebration for 2016 as well. The list continues to grow with new and interesting clients and we are both grateful and excited to work with every one of them.
We love working with local businesses and bringing a strong brand presence to each of our clients. Yearbook Studios practices the belief that every business should be treated as a unique entity and with that, we try to identify what makes each business one-of-a-kind and bring that to the forefront with their branding—and with all extensions of that brand to set them apart in the marketplace.
Visit http://www.yearbookstudios.com/studio/ for more information.
What does Yearbook Studios have planned for the holiday season?
That is the question, isn’t it? Yearbook is a mystery waiting to be unveiled each holiday season and we love making people eager to see what we come up with. Always in brand with our store, there are plenty of new products and surprises lined up that begin to surface in October and through November. Our holiday window, which is top secret until we install it the week of Thanksgiving, is a nail biter for many, and we love doing the installation. Historically they are our longest window installations, with 2014 coming in the longest at 13 hours. We have plenty of evening events through November and December, including private shopping events for members of our newsletter, so it’s best to sign up if you want to get in on the action!
