How to Produce a Yearbook--Jade

As my teacher has said for the past four years I’ve been in yearbook, “Making a yearbook is like having a baby. The first couple of months are calm, then we start to get a little uncomfortable, then we literally want nothing to do with each other for the last week before deadline until we submit our book to the publishing company (or give birth, to go along with the analogy) where it stays hidden for months, because that’s your baby and you want to spend time with your beautiful baby (book) then, when the time is right, you share your baby to the public and there is no way you’d want someone to tell you your baby is ugly, no way.” There is about 3,600 people who all want to be covered in the yearbook. And, we only have nine months to finish it all. What does it take to finish a yearbook? Here’s where I come in, the process is the same each year.

            1.         Recruit a staff: Send out applications and schedule interview times.

            2.        Find a theme: the theme should reflect this year, this school, and these people. A theme should convey the message of the entire year. It should not be the cliché, “Where?” because that can be used for any school. No, the theme is a universal idea portrayed through the entire book which relates to Etiwanda and Etiwanda only.

            3.         Hold a yearbook staff meeting: Meet with the staff, get them on board with the theme idea and let them share their ideas, you never know what they could come up with!

            4.         Create a style guide: Set up external margins, choose fonts for headlines, stories and captions. Find design elements that visually portray the theme of your book.

            5.         Go to yearbook camp: Get ready to wake up at 6:00a.m. for three long days of non-stop computer staring. During this time, you will see a professional graphic designer who will make your book’s cover “come to life.” Then, you will learn the basics of simple design; the pica, eye-line, white space, the correct placements of photos and captions, the feeling of complete and utter disappointment that comes at the mere glance of trapped text (the horror). Camp is always fun. despite the long hours on the computer, you make so many memories with the other editors and become closer friends.

            6.         Summer: Meet with potential photographers, assign summer photo-ops such as senior jobs, summer practices and vacations. Keep in contact with them all and make sure they are getting to where they were assigned to.

            7.         The first day of school: Photographers should carry their cameras around with them the whole day to get pictures of first day activities. Have a fun icebreaker activity to do with the staff to get know each other (fun, right?)

            8.         The first six weeks: Training, training, training. Teach the staff to write yearbook captions and stories properly. Teach them how to choose worthy photos and interview students to get “storytelling quotes.” This means no: “Homecoming was fun with my friends,” quote. Staff must know to ask follow-up questions to get a better, more interesting quote.

            9.         Group spreads: Pair up new members with returning ones to complete the first six spreads of the book.

            10.       Assign the next deadline: Members will each have their own individual spreads to complete!

            11.       Modules: Because the portrait section of the book is a little boring,  we use “modules” to spice them up. Modules are like sidebars that add more coverage in the book. They are creative secondary coverage packages that add more to the portrait section of the book. The staff with break into a committee who will only work on modules until they are done, then they are assigned spreads.

            12.       The clubs section: Schedule club photos, which is super duper hard because clubs can sometimes be hard to communicate with. Design the clubs section, and take the club photos. Then, after the photos are taken, get a computer and turn your head extremely uncomfortably to the side so you are able to read sideways to name every. single. person. in. every. single. photo.

            13.       The index: The index is the same way, but with sports (the last section of the book!)

            14.       Submit your book to print: One of the best parts of being in yearbook. We come into school one day after all our hard work and press the publish button. The way the progress page is all blue on StudioWorks and the “fireworks” that we get once we press the publish button. I use the word “fireworks” very loosely. It’s okay though it’s still a great feeling to publish the production you’ve spent so much time on.

            15.       Sales: Create a sales plan, unsold yearbooks are very bad because it’s a lot of money lost. We must sell out!

            16.       The distribution party: Make a committee that will work together on set up, decorations and contacting food truck vendors for the distribution party. And the best part, when the day comes, you get to see the happy, smiling faces on all the students’ faces as they flip through the book you created!