End of Year - Yearbook Review

By Lynn Greenberg

Your book is submitted - HOORAY!!!

Now, what do you do?

Now is a great time not just to celebrate the amazing task of finishing the yearbook on schedule but to reflect on what you did well and what you can improve for the next book.

I like to make a list of the different categories of the yearbook process and then list what went well, what needs improvement, and ideas that should be considered.

Here is a list of the different areas I use:

• Staff

• Planning

• Photography

• Sales - methods and dates

• Layout

• Distribution of tasks

• Meeting Deadlines

• Distributing the books

• Miscellaneous/Others

Here are some ideas for things I have put on my lists either when I was an advisor with no staff or one with a staff;

STAFF

What went well:

• Having a staff picnic at the beginning of the year was a lot of fun, and it was good to reconnect after being apart for the summer!

• Yearbook Secret Santa was fun!

• Asking for a parent from each grade to make sure I got all the photos of events, classrooms, and students with missing portraits was a huge help - finding a way to delegate without a staff!

• It’s a huge help having a handout with my name, email, and either link or QR code to hand out to parents at school events or programs so they can share the photos they take at an event. It is like adding a staff member. Add a stack of these to the front desk of the building where parents can pick one up. Make it digital so classroom teachers can include it in their email updates. I got so many photos that I could never get on my own!

Ideas for improvement:

• We need a bigger/smaller staff

• We need a hierarchy, or we had too many bosses micromanaging and not helping

• Certain matchups didn’t work well together

• We need a bonding activity

• We need to recruit more underclassmen to start learning or taking photos

PLANNING

What went well:

• I loved being able to see the deadlines on the shared online calendar

• I loved having a big calendar on the wall to see the approaching deadlines

Ideas for improvement:

• We need a bigger calendar/we need a calendar

• We need to assign staff to sections or tasks

• We should finish portrait pages before break

• We need to get a calendar of all events to schedule staff to be there to take photos

• We need a list of all clubs and advisors

• Basic plan for sections

PHOTOGRAPHY

What went well:

• Using SignUp Genius to get people to sign up to photograph events was a better way to let people choose their time.

• Sending an email to teachers at the beginning of the year with the expectations of submitting classroom photos and a link to their direct online photo folder to make it easy for them to submit was a huge help! Plus, they could share it with their classroom parents—we had tons of photos to choose from!

Ideas for improvement:

• We need more photos at all the events. 

• We need more underclass staff to get the photos. 

• We need to divide the staff to get to all the events.

• Need to ask parents or students for photos.

• How do you get non-yearbook staff to contribute photos? Parents, other students, and staff— use a QR code linked to an online cloud storage.

• I need more photos in-class— active learning shots.

• More time to edit photo pages

SALES

What went well:

• Big hit: The sales booth at the Open House 

• Handouts with a QR code helped get the information into parents’ hands

• Including info and links in the principal’s newsletter and classroom newsletter

• Handing out the flyers at the music programs in winter (and spring if you still have time to buy)

Ideas for improvement:

• We need to have a soft deadline and a hard deadline.

A few other ideas always making a list of what worked or went well and what needs improvement or didn’t work

• Layout

• Distribution of tasks

• Meeting deadlines

• Distributing the books

• Miscellaneous/others 

I’m sure you can think of a lot more, and some of these are just the beginning of ideas or lists I have used; because so many of these are specific to your yearbook methods and staff, it’s up to you to figure out the areas to consider. The important thing each year is to learn from mistakes and make the process easier and less stressful.

Turning in your final yearbook and taking time to reflect on the process and the final product is a great time to celebrate all that has been accomplished, but it’s also a great time to think about the process while you are still in the mindset and engaged with the process.

Did you enjoy this blog? Well there’s more with that came from, discover Yearbook Groupie! A collaborative forum and blog site for yearbook advisors.