Back to school season? No, it’s back to yearbook time!

Every year around the beginning of school, I think, time to get organized. I’m a procrastinator, I really can’t help myself – even with the best of intentions each August, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about planning ahead. Each year I say, “I’m going to do better this year, no more last minute yearbook designing, chasing down pictures or finding content! NO, not this year!” 13 years of that and I’m learning to embrace it, but I still need to do a little bit of planning and organizing.

This year school got off to a bit of a late start and quite a different start, but that doesn’t mean I need to abandon my usual plan. My first step always has to be remembering to remind people to get those first day of school photos for the yearbook! If I’m lucky, I remember to post on about 10 Facebook groups at least a couple of days before or the day after. If I’m really good, I ask the principal to put the link to where photos can be uploaded in the newsletter before the first day – it’s not likely for me to remember to do that in time. Usually, I post after the first day of school – I told you I’m a procrastinator.

I always check my deadlines! When are my absolute must turn in dates – cover due date, sales dates, portrait due date, final deadline for final sales numbers and submitting the book, then I start working backwards. I make a list of sections, events, must have photos and the list of all the teachers, updating my previous list to add the new teachers.

I email teachers and introduce myself and let them know I am the yearbook advisor and I’ve got this, but I do need their help to get photos of the really cool things they do in class. I explain my philosophy for yearbooks – as many faces as possible! Every kid wants to see themselves in the yearbook, not just their portrait, so my goal is to get them in at least 3 times and in a school of 1000+ kids. That can be a challenge. The answer is lots of photos, lots of group shots, not a lot of words – did I mentioned it’s a school for grades 2-5, a lot easier to do than in a high school yearbook, I think. I give the teachers the instructions for how to submit photos for the yearbook and my requirements from them; type and number of photos, then I encourage them to share it with the parents in their class. And I definitely beg them to take photos with their phones!

I see everyone as part of my yearbook photography staff. Everyone has a phone with a camera these days, so they can quickly snap a photo and submit it for the yearbook. Principals have twitter accounts to share what’s happening in their buildings, I download pictures from there or request those from the principal. I print out instructions for uploading photos, make copies and leave them at the front desk of the school.

Luckily I have worked with a couple of yearbook companies that have the ability to receive and store photos online where I can collect and organize them, and I’ve also used Google Docs and Google Photos, which work well too (especially when one of the company’s sites has an integration that allows me to directly transfer from Google Docs and Google Photos into my online storage for the yearbook’s online design program)

Let’s not forget the theme and cover design! Picking a theme is something that takes time;  I think about theme from before I finish my previous year’s yearbook. I’m always looking around for inspiration and most of the time, it evolves as the year moves on. I’m fortunate to have a friend who has a great eye and sees my ideas as clearly as I do and helps me work through them and develop them, as well as a great yearbook account manager, who definitely encourages me!

This year is not like any other year, but there are somethings that are the same for a yearbook advisor.It’s our job to grab this moment in time and capture it; a yearbook is a time capsule; it’s a letter from the past, that we write every year.