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questions you have a team OF DEDICATED CUSTOMER SERVICE ADVISERS Ready to help. Available from 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CST. You Ccan call or email your questions. Most adviseRs prefer to work with the CSA assigned to their school because they feel comfortable contacting the same person with whom they’ve DEVELOPED a strong working relationship. but, if you need help right away and your CSA is busy, anyone else on the teaM is willing to assist. OUR GOAL IS to make your experience the easiest it can be. Not only is everyone on the customer service team a SPecialist in yearbook production, but they are ALSO experts in using the tools you use and are familiar with the options you have Chances are they have helped other advisers with the same QUESTION.
1.800.453.2813
call between 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CST or email any of the professionals on our team. Peggy Brown Customer Service Adviser phbrown@herffjones.com Debbie Kennedy Customer Service Adviser dpkennedy@herffjones.com Clarissa Shelby Customer Service Adviser ccshelby@herffjones.com Todd Sparks Customer Service Adviser jtsparks@herffjones.com Robyn Williams Customer Service Adviser rnwilliams@herffjones.com Donna Watson Customer Service Manager dwatson@herffjones.com Beth Nelson Technical Support Adviser ernelson@herffjones.com The Customer Service team is there to make yearbooking easy for you!
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what’s
inside
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cover-creating tips The old saying “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is completely untrue when you’re talking about the yearbook. Design inspiration and lots of example covers will help get your own creative juices flowing to design a cover your students will love.
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best yearbook award goes to… Design awards, praise from readers, sales records and smiling faces mean the book is loved.
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FAQs The Customer Service Advisers put their heads together and made a list of those questions they hear most often. Then, they answered them so that you’ll have the details right at your fingertips!
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mini-webinar schedule The most important how-to questions are answered in live webinar demonstrations and Q&A sessions.
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big ideas All great books have a unifying idea. That helps tell the story of the year. Learn where you can find one for your book.
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lots & Lots of coverage Cute ideas for including everyone in the book.
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advice for all Advisers share some hints they wish they would have known when they created their first books.
sell more yearbooks The easiest way to make the yearbook affordable is to sell as many copies as possible.
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SEEK INSPIRATION Check Herff Jones’ collection of pre-designed covers; see if you like any of those as a unifier for this year’s book. If not, look at ads, greeting cards and other printed materials for ideas, or consider a cover art contest to showcase student work. CONSider a theme Having a unifying idea will make your book feel cohesive and will make this year’s book feel different than last year’s volume. CHOOSE SOME UNIfiers The cover art will set the tone for the book. Using colors, symbols, shapes and fonts found on the cover inside the book will make it feel planned and cohesive. BE CREATIVE If you’re doing your own cover, you can draw it, paint it, submit photos or create the entire masterpiece on the computer; it’s entirely up to you! CREATE A RECORD Don’t forget the year and the name of the school on the cover; it may seem obvious right now, but in years to come, that information will become even more valuable. for yearbook info digital magazine
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EVEN IF YOU’re lucky enough to HAVE EXPERIENCE (LIKE WORKING ON YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR COLLEGE YEARBOOK), CREATING A YEARBOOK TODAY MAY BE AN ALL-NEW PROCESS. In some ways, creating a yearbook is SO MUCH EASIER because many of the most tedious processes are now automated, but there’s still a lot to know. So we asked our support team which questions they hear most from advisers... and we’re hoping the answers make your job easier.
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A GREAT THEME WILL PULL YOUR BOOK TOGETHER AND HAVE SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE. Handprints have long been used as a measure of growth and are a cherished memento for parents everywhere. With that in mind, the yearbook staff created additional significance by suggesting the theme “We’re all about hands-on learning.” The title page is flooded with images of students’ hands and student hand artwork is scattered throughout along with colorful handprints. The 80-page book ends with all of the eighth graders together on the lawn holding hands to say goodbye.
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big
ideas look around. Ideas are everywhere. junk mail, billboards, advertisements on tv are all filled with themes to borrow, tweak and make your own. The trick is finding the one that is meaningful to your school and that can be developed easily throughout the book. Keep in mind the
feeling you wish to convey in your book and how it reflects your school atmosphere. Do you want to be playful? Thoughtful? School spirited? Are there any common phrases that are popular with your students? Walk the school halls, visual and verbal cues are everywhere. Y Online offers dozens of pre-designed borders, backgrounds, coordinated
graphics and covers that you could use to build a theme. Once you’ve chosen your theme, brainstorm ways to carry it through the book. Maybe it’s a piece or two of clip art, student artwork or photos, in addition to borders and backgrounds that subtly suggest the theme throughout the book.
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We ARE The FUTUREfuture Evident from the front cover to the last autograph page, corkboard backgrounds, Polaroid-style shots and Post-it-like note paper help pull this playful theme through the book. Clip art push pins and torn notebook paper add a touch of whimsy to pages filled with students enjoying their time in school. Even the sometimes more serious portrait pages are dressed up with additional images of students with their classmates. The addition of the full-color, fourpage “Our World� supplement helps to cement this yearbook in time by covering world events that made headlines during the year. The 64-page, perfect-bound book presents everything from class time activities to clubs and candid scrapbook-style pages in a fun and easy-to-follow style.
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same cover design, three different yearbooks. Three schools — one each in Texas, Tennessee and Georgia — selected the same professionally designed cover, but that didn’t mean they had identical yearbooks. All three staffs created yearbooks using graphics, backgrounds and headlines that coordinated, and each had its own creative style.
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Well done!
Great idea!
Cool!
COlorful backgrounds and larger gRaphic icons set this book apart. The staff decided to stick with the bright palette from the colorful chalked cover and repeated both the brilliant hues and the “handdrawn” graphics on coverage pages to create a package that held together well. Because the lower school is on three campuses, each campus had its own identifying color in the book.
TEXTURED BACKGROUNDS AND CONTRASTING ACCENTS provide another option designwise. The coordinated background is available both at full opacity and in a lighter “ghosted” version, so this staff combined the two, adding colorful strokes around the photos and graphic labels to help identify page content inside. Again, a unified look holds the volume together as a planned piece.
GHOSTING ALL BACKGROUNDS makes the full-color photos really “pop” from the pages. As with the two plans above, it’s clear that the staff worked together to orchestrate the book’s look. Once the creative team chooses the visual look to be used throughout, page designers can work from anywhere, knowing that the finished product will be held together by the consistent backgrounds.
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artfully attractive A piece of purchased artwork provided the basis for this entire volume. Alisa Hyde, a graphic designer and a volunteer parent adviser for the past three years, created backgrounds, selected appropriate fonts and gave the book its personality. As a trained designer, she finds herself setting up the backgrounds, finessing the spreads to completion and uploading the pages. “The best staff scenario I can imagine,” she said, “would be one where I could handle most of design concerns and other parents might be in charge of making sure everyone is included, handling the fifth grade ads and baby pictures and selling the yearbooks. I think having people assigned to specific tasks makes most sense. And having some teachers work with the parent volunteers would be of great help too.”
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IT’S AGREAT WAYTO make the bBOOK DIFFERENT EACH YEAR AND TO INCLUDE STUDENTS WHO MIGHT NOT OTHERWISE BE IN THE YEARBOOK. Art contests are popular at many schools, so what about using student art to begin the section that includes each new set of class pictures? The dividers introducing each class section showcased several pieces of student art as well as some handwritten messages from students and parents. A similar display of photos and messages in quote bubbles was used to share messages to the sixth graders from their parents and others wishing them well.
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A COLORFUL PALETTE AND LOTS OF FUN ILLUSTRATIONS. Of course, everyone loves to see pictures of themselves and their friends. Layering colored backgrounds, coordinating graphics, colorful artwork and lots of candids from the classroom, from special activities and from field trips gives every spread a fresh approach while creating a book that holds together as a cohesive volume. If you have several volunteers working on spreads and you want a book that is unified, it’s important to make design decisions before work begins so that there’s no need to duplicate efforts.
MORE STUDENTS PLUS A RECORD OF THE YEAR! Colorful boxes unify the book and contain information that makes it more personal. In addition to quotes from students sharing everything from favorite movies, actresses and cartoon characters that create a record of the year, each spread contained a series of favorite class activities.
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THE YEARBOOK REALLY IS A HISTORY BOOK! With retro graphics, and cool contemporary backgrounds, this book is a great example of the adage, “Everything old is new again.” The look is fresh, but the nod to history is obvious in the book that records the faces and events of the year for all time. A cool addition: the now and then photos of each teacher alongside his/her quote.
TAKING it literallLITERALLY. The theme, “Building a legacy one life at a time,” inspired the use of fun construction graphics alongside content, as folios and to add coverage.
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When space allowed on the class photo pages, students completed the prompt, “If I were a builder...�
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Covering printing costs for the yearbook is an important part of the process. In some cases, the school or PTA may provide funding but in most schools, the yearbook staff is responsible for earning the funds along with creating the book. If that is the case for you, consider any and all of the following as you plan your year. Prior planning always prevents poor performance. There is nothing worse than spending all spring wondering if you’ve ordered enough books. If you adopt the philosophy “ask early and ask often,” you’re likely to sell more books before you even have to put in your final count for printing. Be sure parents know how to purchase the books. Placing posters around the school or a large banner outside
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near the drop-off and pick-up lines will alert parents to the fact that books are on sale and to check homework or take-home folders for additional information. Be sure that your teachers are all equipped to handle collecting money by using the order envelopes. Consider how much you want to charge for the books. Can you afford to sell books at a discount to those who order early or to teachers? Could the PTA purchase one for each of the teachers? Are there any special circumstances
that you want to be sure to address like students who just can’t afford a book? Maybe you could consider soliciting area businesses or even your teachers or PTA to conduct an “Angel Program” where students anonymously receive a yearbook paid for by someone else. What about offering a sibling discount so parents could afford to purchase a separate book for each of their children? Book sales efforts can make such a difference.
Posters Blanket the school with pre-designed posters or have your students create their own to advertise book sales info. Order Envelopes Be sure all of your teachers have one and are clear about when to collect money and what to do with orders. parent newsletter Place an ad in the parent newsletter giving information on how to purchase a yearbook. phone blast OR EMAIL Campaign Ask the principal to message all parents and share the opportunity to reserve their yearbooks now. back-to-school NIGHT salesMake sure parents know ahead of time so they come prepared to buy the yearbook that night.
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IT REALLY HELPS TO DIVIDE THE RESPONSIBILITIES. IF YOU CAN RECRUIT MORE VOLUNTEERS, DO IT.
Don’t be afraid to reach our for help. That’s why the customer service team and other resources exist!!!
...KEEP THESE
WORDS OF WISDOM
IN MIND! BEST CASE SCENARIO: HAVE SOMEONE ELSE IN CHARGE OF BOOK SALES.
It really pays to be organized.
DO YOUR BEST TO INCLUDE EVERYONE.
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