Planning a Yearbook

The following is a suggested plan for administrating your yearbook, drawn from the experience I gained while doing yearbooks:

1. Start early in the year
When careful planning is implemented you can let everyone know what is expected of you. When you do this, and continually follow up to get content in continuously though the year, it prevents a mad rush in November, a time of the year when everyone is already stressed and overloaded with other work.

2. The main coordinator should not be a teacher who teaches examinable subjects
Teachers are loaded with work and preoccupied with their specific grade/class. This is especially evident
at the end of the year when exams are in process - a crunch time for the yearbook.

3. Decide on the yearbook map at the beginning of the year
Also, decide what you want from each school group. In other words, work out what you want in the yearbook, and how you want it laid out. This way it is easy to determine what is needed for each section of the yearbook.

4. Use the above plan to set deadlines for the submission of work
This way, there is no rush to collect work, the yearbook is not all done at the end of the year, and no event is missed out. This way it is easy to add extra content in, if something pops up.
(I would suggest all class images and student comments are in by the end of June. Sports and cultural reports should be submitted when their season ends, and the faculty comments at the end of September. The only late material should be special events and awards decided on or held at the end of October.)

5. Have a person who decides on the corporate image, meet with the designer in early March to decide on
the layout and design theme
It is important that the design matches the image your organization wishes to portray. March is also an easier time in the school calendar, so there is more room to make the time to do this.

6. Set specific required material for each class, grade, cultural, sport and faculty
This makes it easier for people responsible to collect material.
(An example: each cricket team needs to submit: a team photo, 5 action photos, and stats that included the number of matches played, number of wins, losses, draws and the winning or loosing margins. A 100 word report should be written to cover the cricket season.
Another example: all grade 3 classes must submit a formal and informal image of each child in their class, as well as a 10-20 word quote from each learner. Specifying the number of images up front prepares responsible persons for the task. It also forces them to select only the best images.)

7. Only accept digital material from teachers, managers, etc
Specify how all material must be labeled, e.g. [grade][name][topic][#].jpg or [grade][name][topic][#].doc. Save only one item per document. This makes it easier to see what you have, what is missing, what belongs where and who wrote it. (It will also save the coordinator time when collecting items, and if all staff member know this up front they have enough time to plan to have a digital camera with them.)

8. When content is to be collected, make sure the relevant content is burned to disk well before the
designer arrives
This saves enormous amounts of time when meeting with the designer. It would be even better to mail content to the designer, as they can be working on the yearbook continuously.