YearBook Publishing And Printing

When you start designing your yearbook your only goal is to make it look amazing and beautiful but it is important to look out for some of the little details that you might miss out on. With the hustle that comes along with getting everything done on time it is important you keep a close eye on a few areas of your yearbook.

1. White Space: Each page of your yearbook should have a tight layout. To much white space can make the sections of your page feel like they are just floating around. It is important to contain and all the content either into sections with borders but too much white space will leave it discombobulated.

2. Photos: Your photos should all be ran through photoshop and have all the proper adjustments made to the lighting. This is very important. The pictures are what is going to tell a story and if your lighting is poor in your photos it will be important to clean that up as much as possible. More than likely you will have photos submitted through various sources whether it be students, organizations or parents. Your range of quality will vary greatly so it will be important to clean them up as much as possible.

3. Budget: Keep your budget in the back of your mind the entire time during the planning process. Especially when it comes time to planning out your cover. Cover choices can get very expensive quickly and you could very easily eat through a great deal of your budget.

You are going to eventually hit a cross road in your yearbook design when it comes to fonts. There are many different fonts out there. There are also many different websites that allow you to down load free fonts so that you can then use them in programs like Photo Shop.

It is important to pick fonts that are consistent with your yearbooks message. If you are going for a themed yearbook you your fonts should be consistent with your theme. If you are going with western theme your font should be a western type font. If your yearbook really supports sports and is surrounded by sports photos then you should lean towards a sports type of font to carry the brand of the book.

Look at your year book as a brand. Your goal is to get people to buy your yearbook. You want to brand it as much as you can to the feel of the theme and your school. Your school has a brand, most likely a mascot in which people in your community associate with your school. If this association is popular throughout your community than maybe targeting this type of branding and incorporating the right type of fonts through your yearbook will be the right direction to take.

When you start thinking about different ideas for yearbook themes and covers you and your team will most likely come up with many different directions you would like to take designs, photos, themes and covers. It will be important to take it step by step and figure out what will appeal to all. It will be important for your yearbook to have certain elements that will appeal to as many students as possible.Take a look at the different students in your school or organization and try to pick out all the various demographic elements that each hold and try to use those elements in your design.

Some schools or organizations will have many different types of groups and it will be difficult to include all of them into the book. The more effectively you can incorporate these group traits into the overall design of your yearbook the better it will appeal to most of your student body. It will be difficult to gauge the success of this but you will know that if each group is looking at the yearbook and they can make connections to their own likes and hobbies in the book they will most likely give you and your group a mental thumbs up for giving them their own little slice they can call their own.

If you have been chosen to coordinate all the decision making which goes into the make and production of your yearbook it is important to put part of student life and culture into your design making decisions and not so much what you like. What you like and what your students and peers want to see in the yearbook might be two very different things.

It is really important to speak with your peers and ask them some questions and find out what some of the most important themes of the year where. Here are some questions you could ask to get a feel for what happened that year.

1. What was your most memorable event? Find out what their favorite event was that occurred that year. Whether it was a dance or a sporting event this will give you an idea of what photos to give weight to and even a possible direction for your theme.

2. What was the funniest thing that happened that year? Find out what action that might have occurred got people smiling the most. This a way to find out what your peers and students where most interested in.

3. What created the biggest buzz? Find out what created the biggest buzz on campus or at school. What got people whispering and talking. Whether it was controversial or not find out what it was. This could be a great way to connect with your peers and students.

It is ok to be as creative as you want when planning your yearbook layout. People like creative and the more you can catch them off guard when they turn the pages the better your yearbook will turn out. Here are some creative ideas that will get people smiling about your book.

1. Hide with your Camera: Locate a section of your school with your camera and randomly take pics of people walking. This will allow you to get some great candid shots of students walking and there is good possibility you will be able to find some great gems once you start going through the photos.

2. Student Bios: Find five students who did something remarkable at school that year and do a profile or an interview for them. You could always hold a contest at the beginning of the school year announcing you will be doing this for five lucky students to get people trying to accomplish remarkable tasks that school year.

3. Ask Students: Asj students what the top 10 events of that school year where. Was it homecoming or a dance? what ever it might be you can then narrow down these events and do a few write ups on them on the yearbook trying to also include photos. Ask students right in the beggining of the year to start emailing any pics that have from various events that occurred during the school year.

These days there are many different layouts you can choose from in order for your yearbook to get the attention it deserves from your students and parents. There are many choices for layout design these days and the choices are continuing to grow.

Try picking a layout that had traits and characteristics of your student group. If you are a university who specializes in nursing than a medical type layout and theme would be appropriate. The more characteristics you can implement from your target audiences who will be buying these books the bigger the success they will be. When you first start your planning process have a brainstorming session with your group and have everyone write down a few attributes your audience has and then narrow them down from there. This way you will have a large selection to choose from when making the final decision. There could be a good one you couldn’t think of but someone in your group has. The better the user experience when they are reading your yearbook the better the total outcome will be.

The theme of your yearbook can make or break your committee’s success to put out a good book. Taking the time to figure out which would be the best theme to represent your high school for that particular year will be very important.

The theme should resemble your school and it’s students. You should take into account any popular events or things that have been occurring in your school throughout that specific year that the students took a liking too. If it was a big sports year for your school then maybe a sports theme would be best or if your school put on any events that turned out to be very news worthy a theme regarding that type of event would work best. Making a connection with your students likes and dislikes and the theme of the yearbook will be a very important step in order peek their interests. Once you have narrowed down your themes it is good to ask around and do a preliminary check as to what your peers feel would best fit their schools image. Doing some market research will be ideal before you decide on a theme and start all the leg work. You don’t want to get going on building the rest of the yearbook only to find out the students really dislike the theme.

The color theme is possibly the most important choice to be made for a yearbook. Whether you plan to go with school colors or another color theme, there are a few tricks to make sure that the theme works.

Choosing just two main colors and an accent is the best way to avoid color clashes. More than one tone can be used for each color, such as sky blue and midnight blue, for example. The colors should go together if you want a cohesive look, such as red and orange with gray accents, or blue and black with red accents.

Avoid using too much of bright or strong colors such as red or yellow on a page, since this can distract from the photos you place there. If you are using a very bold color, consider using it as a border color or keep the photos nice and big so the color is minimal.

To keep the yearbook from looking stale, try switching up the colors on different pages, with each two page spread sporting a different hue of the main colors. For example, you could have a two page spread in a light blue, with dark blue borders, and the next spread could be dark blue with white borders. There’s no need to be boring just because you aren’t using a whole rainbow of colors.

Plan to figure out the color theme for the yearbook before the page design starts. Having the colors ready will help you make good design choices. You will also want to make sure your printer can handle the full color yearbook. CYS offers a good full color plan so you can use a color theme on every page.

Most yearbooks have themes and a large number of them will be using similar, if not identical, idea. To make your yearbook stand out, you need something that is unique and original. There are plenty of methods to find a theme that will fit your school and bring back memories decades from now.

Look at the highlights of the year. Was there a special event that dominated? Perhaps a school triumph or a new record was broken. Was your school recognized for having above average scores on the SATs? This can be tied into a theme of success, or record breaking.

Hold a contest. Why not ask the student body to contribute ideas? Have a contest, with the winning theme being used in as the official yearbook theme. Prizes could include a feature page in the yearbook, free passes to a paid school event or anything else you come up with.

Go conceptual. Choose something like “Shadows” or “Light” for your yearbook theme and then design your pages around it. You could have photos with the concept integrated, or just use it on the pages.

Pick a word. Take a word that sums up the school year, like “Challenge” and use it throughout the yearbook theme. You could add quotes that deal with challenges, photograph students overcoming challenges and even include short essays on the theme.

Try to avoid clichéd themes and strive for something that will remind everyone of the school year that they enjoyed together. Keep in mind that some very popular themes might actually be copyrighted, especially those that have been featured on television or in magazines, so a unique yearbook theme is best for all involved.