Walsworth Creative Services helps schools get creative
Written by Shiloh Scott
This post is part of a series highlighting the employees and departments that provide Walsworth’s outstanding customer support. Our post about Computer Support can be found here and you can read about the company’s customer service representatives here.
Walsworth strives to provide a positive yearbook experience to customers on all fronts. Creative Services is there to help with artistic endeavors.
Schools work primarily with this department while designing their cover. Supervisor Scott Pyle said they often start working with schools during the summer. Sometimes a designer from Creative Services meets the yearbook staff in person at a workshop or they will create their cover in a Virtual Cover session.
“Usually the school and the sales rep have already spoken beforehand, so they have an idea of what the theme’s going to be for that year,” Pyle said. “And they usually come up with ideas, or get inspiration from things they saw on Pinterest or on our Cover Gallery, or in our Possibilities book or past books.”
The school and sales rep share their ideas with a designer at a workshop and a cover is created at the workshop. Ideas and files are also shared a week or two before a Virtual Cover session so that the designer and school have a base to begin designing their cover from.
“Sometimes the school likes it right away, sometimes the school wants to make changes,” Pyle said.
Walsworth is the only yearbook company to offer Virtual Cover sessions. Via webcast, the designer comes to the classroom and the adviser and students can see their ideas come to life right then.
Schools can design their own covers, but Pyle said there are benefits to working with Creative Services.
“You’re going to have a professional designer work on it and produce it. And they’re going to come up with other ideas that you may not have thought of,” he explained. “They’re going to try to give you the best cover possible.”
The Creative Services designers are aware of trends and what other schools are doing, so they can create a cover that is as unique as possible. While working on the cover, designers are also able to share suggestions for endsheets, division pages, folios and graphics.
They’re also aware of capabilities. For example, one school wanted their entire cover made out of wood. That wasn’t feasible, but the designer helped them come up with a cover that allowed wood panels to be tipped in.
Walsworth offers an abundance of interesting cover options, but those can get expensive.
“The designer and the rep really have to work together to keep schools in line with their budgets and keep things from going overboard and spending too much money,” Pyle said.
In addition to overseeing Creative Services, Pyle supervises the Cover Prep, Art and Digital Publishing departments.
“We’re all here to help, all my departments are,” Pyle said. “We all work together to get out a large amount of work in a short amount of time. And I think everybody does a good job of doing that, and we try to make the customer as happy as possible.”
Cover Prep and Creative Services work closely together. The Cover Prep Department receives the work from the sales reps, processes it, and then sends it over to Creative Services to create the proof that will get sent to the school.
The Art Department performs a function similar to Creative Services – they help create, but don’t travel for workshops or do Virtual Cover sessions.
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