Creating a yearbook for your school can be very rewarding -- but it can also be a lot of hard work.
Essential Elements For Your Yearbook Printing
If this is the first time your school has ever had a yearbook, you may not know how many people actually want one. Send out a survey asking students and parents if they are willing to purchase a yearbook and how much they are willing to spend. You'll be able to cover some of your printing costs if you sell advertising space, but the rest of the money (and money for next year's yearbook) will have to come from sales of the yearbook itself.
If you already know that there is definite interest in yearbook printing, then you have some other basic decisions to make:
- Do you want your yearbook printing in color or in black and white (or both)? Color printing is generally more expensive. Spot color may be a good compromise to add a bit of visual impact to your pages.
- How many pages do you need? You can start off with an approximate number in order to get price estimates, but you will need to decide on a firm number so you can work on layouts. Figure out how many pages you'll need for student pictures, staff pictures, extra curricular activities, sports teams, and anything else you want to include.
- Will you be using portraits from the school photographer? Contact them early in the year to arrange for you to get them as soon as possible so you can lay out pages for each class.
- What will your yearbook staff be responsible for? It may help to have committees for publicity (advertising and yearbook sales), photography, design and layout, proofreading, and even bookkeeping.
- What kind of camera will you be using? Digital or traditional? How will you be submitting photographs to your printer?
- Who will your advisor or advisors be? The printer will often need contact information for the advisors as soon as possible.
It is a good idea to set up a timeline for what pages will be done at what time, and when they are due at the printer. For example, you can get class photographs and all sports team pages out of the way early in the year. Other things like photographs, clubs, and other undated pages can be done at any time -- but be sure to put them in your timeline anyway. It can take between three and four weeks (or as much as eight weeks) for your printing professional to turn your completed pages into an actual bound yearbook. Keep that in mind when you make your yearbook schedule.
You will also need to leave time to review your page proofs. Before your yearbooks go to press, you will receive a prototype of each page for review. Check carefully for spelling and grammar errors. If you want to make any changes, you may need to pay for a second set of proofs.
There are a few more decisions to make when you are creating your yearbook:
- Do you want to include end-sheets? These are blank pages for your classmates to sign.
- Do you want to offer personalization? This is a student's name printed on the front of a soft cover yearbook.
- What kind of cover do you want to have? Hard or soft? Original art or pre-designed? Do you want foil stamping? Do you want a wrap-around cover with full color on both sides from edge to edge?
- What kind of binding do you want? Hardback books can be sewn or glue bound
or both. Paperback yearbooks can be perfect bound (glued) or sewn or both.
There are many decisions to make when you are preparing for yearbook printing. Talk to your printing professional if you need help at any stage of the process; after all, they are the experts.
