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Hey Dan,
Interesting to read your experience. Mine was the opposite. I found that the bigger companies were more limited and more expensive. When I switched to Entourage, I was able to be more creative and ambitious with my designs and layouts. They really supported my big ideas and helped me make them happen, but when I was with Jostens, Walworth, and Taylor I felt like I had to be limited to their library of layouts and graphics. I felt like I had to work within their pre-designed layouts and image/clipart library.
When I started as a yearbook advisor I struggled to get the support I needed from the company the school was contracted with for years. I was frustrated and not looking forward to the next yearbook, but when school started the next fall the principals informed me that they signed up with a new company, Entourage because of the pricing. I was hesitant at first after the experience from the year before, but the pricing was much lower and I had better support with the ability to bring in my own ideas and create my own templates, layouts, and graphics. Not to mention, I was happy to be able to offer a book with more pages for a lower cost to me and to my students. Even the quality of the book and the binding was better too.
I have done yearbooks for different buildings in our district who were contracted with Jostens and Walsworth and it really felt like stepping backwards and back to being limited in my options and the cost for those books were higher for fewer pages.
Sometimes as a yearbook advisor we don’t have control over the company the school or district contracts with before we are there, but in my situation, when they switched it ended up being for the better. Switching yearbook companies to one that was more supportive to my creative ideas actually made me want to learn more about design, photoshop, illustrator, etc, so their support opened up my creative brain!
