How to Make a Yearbook: Part 2

This is part two of our blog posts detailing the 10 most essential steps in making a yearbook. For part 1, check out our blog post here

6. Establish a yearbook style guide.

If the above steps give any indication, yearbooks consist of a tremendous amount of content from a wide range of sources. Without an overarching vision, your yearbook could turn out to be a jumbled mess. We highly recommend creating a style guide early on in the process to help you and your team stay true to a singular vision throughout the lifetime of the project. Check out our recent blog post on creating a style guide for more insight.

7. Design your yearbook pages.

Designing your pages can be the most creatively rewarding part of this entire project. Make sure to involve your entire team in the process. While it is difficult to provide general recommendations in this area, you and your team should definitely look to the theme and style guide for inspiration and direction. Also, note that advanced yearbook software and online tools exist to help make this task much easier.

8. Finalize your cover.

Yearbook covers can be somewhat intimidating. In a way, it needs to represent your entire theme. Thankfully, covers also present great opportunities for student and community engagement – not to mention marketing! You can have students submit cover designs and have a contest to determine the winner. Alternatively, have students vote on their favorite. You may want to utilize social media to drum up excitement and raise awareness of the yearbook project at the same time.

9. Curate content and make final edits.

While you will likely be laying out and editing content as you receive it over the year, do not forget to review all text in the yearbook for grammar and flow. Likewise, double-check all photos to ensure that they are sufficiently high-quality and that they are cropped correctly. Having multiple eyes on the final draft is always recommended!

10. Print and publish!

Finally, you get to enjoy the rewards of all your hard work! Of course, you’ll want to show your team some appreciation – consider throwing them a party. Also, you more than likely have some more work ahead of you as you sell and distribute the finished yearbooks. As you are awaiting your shipment, though, you should also be thinking about marketing and how you are going to get a yearbook into the hands of every student.