It is registration time and we’ve put up posters saying, “Yearbook wants you.” We’ve run announcements advertising the yearbook class and distributed applications to interested students. Registration finishes and my principal calls me up to pick up the preliminary list. In addition to those students that my staff and I worked hard to recruit are students I don’t know.
Fall 2007
Grading student work in yearbook class is complicated because yearbook production has many facets. Many advisers come up with their grading system by trial and error. That is how Greg Keller, adviser at Lincoln High School, Lincoln, Neb., developed his system.
Orphans and widows are words that are less than a line of copy left at the bottom or top of a column, respectively. Both InDesign CS2 and CS3 have line settings that allow you to prevent widows and orphans.
The passion for yearbook is about people.
Answers abound to the theme of this issue of Idea File, “What does it take?” Once the mechanics of creating a yearbook are subtracted, it is passion that motivates advisers and staffs. But what does that really mean? The advisers who responded to our query generally had the same answer.
A staff manual should answer any question a yearbook staff member may have if they were to find themselves working alone in the yearbook room – not that that should happen. But the point is, the manual needs to be inclusive and easy to navigate and access information. Place your mission statement and purpose at the beginning with the table of contents and, at minimum, put these items in the manual. This contents list comes from Deborah Garner, yearbook adviser at Central High School in Springfi eld, Mo.
Imagine getting a toolbox that helped you organize your projects, provided an abundance of tools for each job and enabled you to keep jobs moving. Advisers and staff can get those types of tools when they create their yearbooks online.
There is a lot to learn about and assess when deciding what digital camera or scanner to buy. With any new venture, you need to learn about the product and decide what your needs are. To get you started, here is some basic digital camera and scanner information that should explain the equipment and help you determine how the equipment meets your needs. You might consider using this article to start your search online and then venture to stores.
Like all design elements, fonts should be used with purpose. And – let’s face it – the purpose of a yearbook is to tell the stories of the year. So the fonts chosen to “speak” shouldn’t draw attention to themselves but rather to the content on the page.
Expanding the classroom walls.
As a teacher of photography and journalism, and a publications adviser, I was always looking for ways to make my classroom bigger, more up-to-date and more interesting. Computers certainly helped, especially when photo CDs became available that could reinforce my lessons.
In journalism, there is a saying about a reporter does not need to know everything, they just need to know who to call for information. That is true about producing a yearbook.
Our Customer Relations Department is available to help you through those stages. Here are some of the ways in which the people in the three departments that make up Customer Relations – Customer Service, Computer Support and Creative Services – can be of assistance.
