Who is Yerd Corey Lau?

People who know him aren’t surprised that Yerd Corey Lau is now co-president of his residence hall at UC Santa Barbara. It makes sense that his major would be film and media studies. It wasn’t big news when he became art director and then an editor in chief of his high school yearbook. Corey, who’s known for his creativity, his wit and more, was a yearbook natural. When he was in eighth grade, his family got a new computer. He started playing around with Photoshop and quickly became more than proficient.

As a freshman in high school, Corey impressed his Honors English teacher, Dan Austin. “Mr. Austin does a great job of using assignments in his English classes to figure out which yearbooking skills (in addition to writing) students might have,” Corey said. “He knew I liked photo and video, so I joined staff as a photographer sophomore year.”

Corey was part of three award-winning Rampages staffs at Casa Roble High School in Orangevale, CA, and his work now colors his philosphy on life. “It’s all about breaking rules,” Corey, a Yerd at both Phoenix and Portland JEA/NSPA conventions, explained. “First you learn the rules, and then you learn to break them the right way. Creativity comes when you can experiment outside of common practice.”

A look at some of Corey’s spreads from the 2010 Rampages is proof that “classy deviance” works for this Yerd.

"Creativity comes when you can experiment outside of common practice."

Discoveries Volume 15 Issue 3