By now, I’m sure you know the pros and (mostly) cons of leaving a task unplanned and until the absolute last minute. Here are three simple steps to yearbook planning success.
In the spirit of “let’s get stuff done”, follow the steps below and break the tasks down into smaller, attainable ones. It’s much more satisfying to knock tasks off a list, it keeps us motivated and feeling positive about making progress.
Three steps to Yearbook Planning Success
Step 1: Assemble your dream team
Step 2: Plan timelines and deadlines
Step 3: Create a Yearbook Ladder of pages
Step 1: Assemble your dream team
Our previous post ‘How to Organise Your Yearbook Team‘ will be a big help here! Maybe you’ll need to recruit members, or maybe you already have enough interest and it’s a case of arranging who does what.
Collaboration is the golden nugget – make sure each member understands their role, and as a team you meet regularly to discuss progress.
Step 2: Plan timelines and deadlines
Planning a yearbook without timelines is like taking a long ride on the tea cups, you never have a destination! Feeling dizzy yet? Okay, so you may have your start date (which is today, by the way) and your end date (this could be results day, last day of term, or an awards night) but what about the time inbetween?
There’s plenty to get your teeth into, so set up a handy online calendar (or printed version for the wall if you prefer) and add deadlines for the following:
Collecting content
Allow yourself around 2-4 weeks to collect your year group photos and comments.
Designing your yearbook
Once you’ve chosen a design theme it won’t take long to layout pages and add your content. Remember to split this task and allocate sections of your yearbook to your editors and staff (this will get the job done a lot quicker).
Reviewing and amending
When all of your yearbook sections have been completed, export a PDF proof and find a cosy spot somewhere to look through it. Read everything and check every student entry! Ask a few others to do the same, as six, eight, even ten eyes will spot more errors than two. Once you’ve made the necessary corrections you’re good to go to print!
Printing and delivery
Homework, coursework and essay deadlines are always strict, right? Well treat this deadline in exactly the same way. It takes 2-4 weeks to print and bind a yearbook, so if there’s one deadline you can’t mess with, it’s this one!
Step 3: Create a Yearbook Ladder of pages
I’m sure this brings some interesting images to the imagination, so let me explain further – a yearbook ladder is a plan of each and every yearbook spread (a left hand page and a right hand page) with a description of the content.
This plan will be the ‘go-to’ document for your design team and saves yearbook teams a lot of time (and confusion).
Remember we mentioned your yearbook start date earlier in this post? Well that start date is today! So go forth and get yearbook planning 🙂
P.S. Happy Halloween!
