A Step-By-Step Guide for Planning a Yearbook

Feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of building an entire yearbook? Here are eight easy steps to get you over the start line on your way to a successful yearbook project.

Step 1: Take a Tour of Your Software
Review the features of your software -- ladder planning, photo gathering, portrait management, team permissions and editor features. Getting comfortable with the available tool set will make for quicker work when you are ready to build your project.

Step 2: Build a Team

Adding users to your yearbook software and enlist volunteers to work on your book: design assistance, photographers, sales & marketing, book distribution.  Assign people to run a yearbook cover design contest or collect info and photos for special sections, like baby pictures, class surveys on popular trends, superlative pages, etc.  Enlist a proofreader or two, and make sure that you know who has final sign-off on your book.

Step 3: Yearbook Ladder Planning

Create sections to organize your book into smaller, manageable projects. 

• Consult past yearbooks and your school calendar to decide what activities, events and groups will be included in the book. Access our handy section guide to help you select the topics to include in your book. 
• Add sections to your ladder to group pages together. Feel free to download our ladder planner pdf to help you decide the order you want to present the pages. For example, create a section for the staff pages, clubs, sport teams, arts & performances, senior class memories, special activities, etc.

Step 4: Photo Collection

Set up photo albums in your yearbook software to match your sections and/or page topics, then upload any photos you have on hand. If you need to get photos from your school community, use the your software's community photo gathering tool or a Google drive to receive photos from people not working directly on the yearbook.

Step 5: Create a Simple Design Plan

Keeping your design plan simple is an effective way to manage your production time. The more decisions made before page design begins, the quicker you can build your book.

• Choose a theme for your entire book or for individual sections. 
• Create a simple 2-4 color palette, or focus on your school’s colors.
• Preselect a small collection of coordinating backgrounds. Use one style per section or theme the entire book.
• Limit your clipart to a specific style or theme to avoid clutter.
• Select a font styling for your page titles and paragraph text, either on a per-section basis or for the entire book.

Step 6: Import Portraits

Import your portraits with their database file in your yearbook software, then make any necessary changes to your portrait database (typo corrections, adding/moving students to new classrooms or grades, etc.). By having information attached to your portraits, you’ll be able to use special tools to auto-format your portrait pages into alphabetized, labelled grids.

Step 7: Design Your Pages

Flow your portrait pages into your book and build candid layouts. Page creation can be as simple as using premade layouts in your software with your photos for a clean and simple book, or you can create your own personal work of art with decorative elements, themed backgrounds and photo effects. 

Step 8: Proof and Submit Your Book

Generate pdf proof pages to share your design with proof readers. Be sure to show your student portrait pages to homeroom teachers to make sure that every student gets into the book. After all your pages are ready to move forwards towards printing, submit your book to the Dashboard for proofing. Once the proof is approved, it's time to place your order to print.