The Yearbook Blog

Yearbooks.biZ (that’s “biZ” not “com)is where you can find new ideas to keep your creative juices flowing. Just because this is our final card, doesn’t mean we don’t have more to share. At Yearbooks.biz you’ll find sample covers, endsheets, themes, spreads, divider pages, sales tips, writing lessons, and much more. Go ahead–take a look. Just tell everyone you’re doing “research.”

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “Z” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

Granted, we trust you are all responsible and thoughtful students, but sometimes yearbook programs do things that just make you say, “What were they thinking?” Things like allowing student to put grisly hunting pictures in their senior ad or use a quote from Hitler for their personal statement. Some schools have even landed in the news for seemingly insignificant things, like the female senior in Florida who wanted to wear a tux for her senior portrait and the superintendent said no. All this leads to one point: have policies for your book to avoid controversy. A few suggestions:

• Dress code for senior portraits?
• How would the yearbook handle a student’s death in the middle of the year?
• What kinds of pictures can be used in a baby ad?
• How does the yearbook select the person for a dedication?

The more you have in writing, the less likely you’ll need to scramble for an answer when the situation arises.

Yes, we know, YERDS and Advisers are very under appreciated, but there are other individuals on campus who deserve some appreciation, too — whether it’s a note, a gift card, or a nice acknowledgement at a staff meeting.

• The custodian (who cleans up the classroom after the pizza parties on your late work nights)
• The secretary (who answers a million and two questions about yearbook)
• The counseling department (who runs off all the class lists and always knows what class someone is in)
• The IT person (who answers all your panicked phone calls when the computers are whacky)
• The bank clerk (who collects all the money from book sales, ad sales, parent ad sales, and fundraisers AND pays your bills on time!)

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “U” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

OK, we know today’s students were born with a computer mouse in their hands, but when it comes to school technology, you’re pretty limited due to necessary restrictions from the school district. That’s why establishing a positive relationship with your school and/or district IT person can make a HUGE difference in the success of your year. As soon as possible each August, contact the school or district IT person and discuss the following:

• Any newly installed firewalls
• Installation of all software necessary for page production (including fonts, Adobe Flash, and any supplementary program software)
• Permissions
• Yearbook server locations, accessibility and size

Then, remember to nurture this relationship throughout the year with a birthday card, a thank you note, or an offer to buy lunch. It’ll go a long way in keeping your computers glitch-free!

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “T” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

Producing a yearbook is a lot of fun, but it also carries a great responsibility. A yearbook lasts forever and cannot be reproduced once the year is over. Because of this, every picture, every caption, every quote in every story, and even every graphic has to be true and accurate. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you record the year’s memories for your school community:

• Check and double check names. No one wants their name misspelled forever.

• Captions and Senior Superlatives are a part of the coverage. They are not a place for inside jokes.

• It’s our place to record history, not make it up. Make sure your scores, quotes and sources are verified.

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “R” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

Although organization can be boring, it can save a lot of drama come deadline day. Here are some resources you can use/create to make Yearbook a little more organized.

• Create staff Mailboxes. This is a great way for staff members to communicate with each other and keep materials in a central location.
• Use your ladder and post it on the wall. It really can make things easier in the yearbook world. This helps prevent pages or topics falling through the cracks.
• Create a proof binder that has a print out of all the pages you submit. It is a great way to keep track of what you have done and still need to do.
• Create a yearbook finance binder that is separated in 3 parts - business ads,  parent ads, and book sales. This way all of your yearbook money information is in 1 spot.

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “O” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

Hopefully by now you all have seen a copy of “Ideas That Fly,” the compendium of covers, themes, inside pages, and more from schools around the country. This beautiful book comes out once a year and then an additional soft cover addendum follows behind. Schools love using them as a resource in the classroom and encourage the students to look through the books for new ideas.

The yearbook adviser at Kennedy Middle School in Cupertino, however, turned it into a full lesson for her yearbook staff. Here were the steps:

1. Everyone received a copy of  ”Ideas that Fly.” She explained what was in there.

2. The students picked out a spread they liked, read about the school, their theme, and any other pertinent information that was listed. Then the student listed things they liked about that spread. Why did they pick it? What ideas or inspiration can we get from the spread? What artistic elements were used? How did the graphics contribute to the theme?

3.  There was enough time for 8-9 different students to share their choices and answers in front of the whole class.

This lesson hit at just the right time. They finished their first deadline and are about to start designing their next set of spreads. Hopefully they will go into deadline #2 with more ideas and ready to challenge themselves.

Deadline just around the corner? Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Here are some tips to help you keep it simple:

Ladder (rhymes with ladder) is your organizational road map. Make sure yours is complete, accurate, and where everyone can see it.

• Don’t just use the same ladder year to year. Recreate it every fall with a new staff and fresh ideas
• Ask yourself if your particular theme needs a different approach to organization (e.g. chronological approach? Three sections instead of five?)
• Include all pertinent information on the ladder: topic, due date, student(s) assigned, etc.
• Cool tip: laminate a fresh wall ladder and use overhead projector pens to write on it. It is much easier to make changes/corrections that way

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “L” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

While your first set of judges will be the student body, there’s another set out there waiting to critique your book and bestow awards. Send in your book as soon as you receive and you should get the critique back in time to put the ideas to use:

• Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) sponsors the Gold and Silver Crown awards
• National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) sponsors the Pacemaker award (older than the heart version)
• American Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) sponsors their own ASPA awards

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “J” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

In the words of G. I. Joe, “Knowledge is Power”. This includes the knowledge of what NOT to do as well. We’re filling these cards up with yearbooks do’s, here are 7 yearbook don’ts:

1. Don’t put faces or text across the gutter.
2. Don’t use too many fonts. Choose just a few (or one font family) that match your visual theme.
3. Don’t trap your captions (putting them between two photos).
4. Don’t have unplanned white space.
5. Don’t have a theme that’s too complicated for your school to understand.
6. Don’t fill your book with images/photos that are unrelated to your school.
7. When selling, don’t ever beg someone to buy a book.

*This entry is part of “The Yearbook Ladies’ A to Zs of Yearbook”
project. If you’d like to download the “K” card, go to the “Adviser
Resources” section of www.theyearbookladies.com

We’d love to hear from you! Share your questions, comments, and ideas below…

The fall is a perfect time to design and order staff shirts or some other apparel. It helps create a team spirit, identifies students on campus, and reminds students to buy their yearbooks.

It’s especially fun when the staff can sneak in a little theme humor that the general student body doesn’t quite understand. Last year the Prospect High School book used the “Polaroid” photo look in their book and used the same graphic on their staff sweatshirts. Of course no one on campus understood the connection until books were passed out in June.

It’s always nice to put the students in charge of the design, like the student pictured below. Last year, a student at Cupertino Middle School had been learning how to silkscreen and actually hand-made every staff jackets!

There are lots of well-priced vendors on the Internet (www.customink.com has a line of American-made shirts), but also give your neighborhood silkscreen store a call and keep your business local.

Yearbook staff tee shirts arrive!

It’s a very common issue in the yearbook world: what falls within your “fair use” rights and what is absolutely forbidden? Here is a very cute video–made entirely from Disney clips–that explains it.

Disclaimer: the rhythm is a little challenging, so you might want to have a student sit down and transcribe the soundtrack and then hand that out to the whole class when you show it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

(Thanks to Eileen Chang at Terman Middle School for sharing this with me!)

It’s a new year, new theme, new kids, new ideas… It’s so easy to get caught up in all the fun stuff and lose focus on what really needs to be done. Use this list of the 12 most important things that need to be done by October 1st to help your staff stay focused. (But that doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun!)

1. Open Your Kit
   • Your yearbook kit contains all the materials necessary to produce your yearbook.
   • Start with the “Start Here” Envelope.
   • Check the Kit Guide to make sure all items have been included
   • Use the order form on the back to order any additional supplies you will need.
2. Contact Photographer
   • Schedule a meeting with you school photographer during the first few weeks of school.
   • Discuss your full color needs and be sure he understands the importance of deadlines
   • Give him your deadlines. Predate them one week as a safety margin.
   • Discuss what you expect from him and what he can expect from you. Find out what services he is willing to perform and schedule his services for important school activities, such as homecoming.
   • Have senior portraits or DVD delivered to your school at least 10 days prior to your senior deadline
   • Set dates for underclass and faculty portraits and determine when  you will receive your Quick Panel Plus CD
3. Determine Deadlines
   • Check your deadline packet from your reps. Make a note of your deadline dates and number of pages due.
   • Check your deadline packet to determine when your color pages are due, if your book is not all color.
   • Check with photographer to determine when DVD of senior portraits
4. Develop a Theme
   • If you have not yet chosen a theme, select a small group of staff members, preferably returning ones, to work on the theme.
   • Have them discuss what is new and different this year, and have them make a list of these changes in order to find a theme that fits your school and is unique to this year.
   • Conduct brainstorminwg sessions with the entire class and present the group’s ideas.
   • Plan to have the theme appear in some way on the cover, the endsheets, the opening section, the division pages, and in the closing.
5. Make a Ladder
   • Before any pages can be assigned, a page ladder for the entire book must be completed.
   • Check your publication agreement to see how many pages there will be in your book. Obtain enrollment figures for your school from the administration.
   • Decide on the number of pages you will need for seniors, underclass and faculty.
   • Make a list of every club, sport, organization, and event you wish to include.
   • Compute the number of pages needed for each section. Be sure to leave enough space for your opening, closing, divider pages, index and advertisements
   • Use a pencil for your first draft of the ladder; or laminate it and use a dry-erase pen, or use the HJ Planner program.
6. Design the Cover
   • If you attended the Spring Cover Workshop, be sure to finalize your cover design.
   • Consult your yearbook representative to see what types of covers are available and within your budget.
   • Decide on the type of cover that best fits your theme and ask your reps to show you examples.
   • Assign a few staff members to develop a sample design.
   • Once the style and design are decided, determine exactly what type of material you wish to use, the color of the material, the applied color or colors, and meet with your reps to put it all together.
   • Decide whether you will order individual name stamps or name plates for the books, and choose the color for these name stamps/plates.
7. Select Endsheets
   • Several choices of endsheet materials and styles are available to you including company designed full color, colortext, and solid color. Check with your rep to see what options best fit your budget.
   • Select an endsheet that will complement your cover and will carry your theme forward. Be sure that the endsheet colors coordinate with the colors of the cover.
   • Discuss other endsheet options with your reps such as printing on the endsheet, four-color endsheets, die cuts, short-trim endsheets, foil stamping, embossing, and tinted embossing.
8. Sell Ads
   • Make a card file that contains the name, address and phone number of every business that has advertised in your book over the last five years as well as merchants who have advertised in other yearbooks in the area.
   • Add cards for businesses that are owned by parents of students in your school.
   • Expand your file further by adding businesses in your area from the Chamber of Commerce directory for your city and from the yellow pages. Pass out an equal number of cards to every staff member, letting them select those that they know.
   • Students must contact each business. Require that a business card or design is submitted for each ad sold.
   • Give commissions or a bonus to students who sell ads.
9. Plan Full Color
   only if you’re not doing an all-color book
   • Take four Roughing-Its, staple and fold them down the middle. Number them from 1 through 16.
   • Take this 16-page signature and use it to “rough in” your title page, opening spreads and student life spreads and/or any other signatures that will include color pages.
   • Plan the color for one flat or the other or both. Try alternating 4-color with spot color on different flats.
   • Plan to cover activities on your color pages that will occur at least one week before your color deadline.
   • Refer to your “Basics” booklet (in Your Kit) for more explanation on signatures and flats.
10. Make a Style Guide
    • Have each member of the staff make a notebook of graphic and typography samples collected from magazines and brochures. (Ask your reps for a list of good publications.)
    • Review the samples and choose ideas that the staff would like to include in the yearbook.
    • Make a style guide for each section that will include the layout style for that section, the type of headline to be used, and the style for copy and captions.
    • Using Roughing-Its, have staff members use photos and copy from magazines to mock-up double page spreads for each section of the yearbook.
11. Organize Staff
    • Select and Editor-in-Chief who is experienced, knowledgeable, and most of all, a coordinator of people. He/she must be able to encourage others to perform.
    • Choose a good writer with strong personality as copy editor and a good organizer as photo editor. Finally, you should have a financial editor or business manager who is very responsible and who can also motivate people to work.
    • Divide up the remainder of the staff into sections of the book: Student Life, Academics, Clubs and Organizations, Sports, Seniors, Underclass, and Faculty. Be sure that each section has a good writer and a computer expert.
    • If you wish, you may select editors for each section.
12. Sell Books
    • Decide whether to have a one-day sale or a one-week sale. You will sell more books in a short period of time than you will sell all year.
    • Prior to the sale, put up posters, make announcements over the PA, send letters home and in general, try to get the students excited about the yearbook.
    • Remember to include dates and prices in your advertisements.
    • Juat before the sale, have a yearbook rally and have guest speakers talk about the importance of their yearbooks. Be ready to take orders that day.
    • During the sale, assign several students to man the tables at convenient locations.
    • Keep tabs on money and receipts.

Between setting up your classroom, staff meetings, planning lessons for all the other classes you teach, and just general denial that summer is over, it may be hard to get back into yearbook mode again. If that sounds like you, or if you’re new to this whole yearbook thing, here are 15 ideas for the first week of school that will get the ball rolling:

1. Expectations - Review your class requirements, grading policies, any planned staff work nights/weekends and the importance of making deadlines.
2. Information - Complete a staff directory that includes phone numbers, other contact numbers (i.e. email, cell phones, work numbers), class schedules, birthdays, parent’s names, etc…
3. Theme - If it isn’t already decided or in the works, discuss theme and cover ideas
4. Critique - Go through last year’s book and have students list and discuss things they liked best and the things they would change
5. Deadlines - Finalize and post the ladder. Color code it by deadline and list specific spread assignments, which pages will be sent with each deadline, etc. Indicate which pages are going to be printed in color and/or spot color.
6. Sell - Discuss and plan your book sales campaign. Have students brainstorm ideas to increase book sales.
7. Ads - Discuss and plan your community, parent, and friendship ad campaigns. Decide whether every student must sell a certain number of ads, if they get bonuses/commissions, how to organize, etc…
8. Team Building - Start each day with 10 or 15 minutes of icebreakers/team building activities. This will help students get acquainted and get over any fears, shyness, etc. and begin to become a cohesive team.
9. Ideas - Have each staff member bring in 5 ideas from magazines that could be used in the yearbook. Or, have each student bring several magazines and have a “look for ideas” class.
10. Practice - Have students refresh and reinforce their design skills by drawing layouts and pasting up photos and type from magazines.
11. Photograph - Buy disposable cameras, have students shoot photos around campus and “discover” who your best photographers are.
12. Improve - Have students rewrite 5 captions and headlines from last year’s book. They should try to make them more informative and adhere to the caption writing formula.
13. Brainstorm - Have students come up with and discuss ideas for feature stories, profiles, polls, and side-bars
14. Delegate - Ask what special contributions/talents each staffer plans to give to the yearbook. From this conversation, decide each staffer’s strengths and what each student’s responsibilities will be.
15. Bond - Try to plan one outside of class activity. You could go for pizza, go bowling, go roller-skating — anything that will allow staffers to get to know each other and just have fun.