4 Tips for Making Yearbooks Stress-Free
You remember your school yearbooks, right? The signatures from people you spent virtually every day with for four years straight, the winners of the “most likely to…” section, the unfortunate hair, the hearts drawn around your crush’s photo…
No matter how your school years played out, it’s tough not to look back at them with a bit of nostalgia once you’ve grown up. We believe that every student should have some sort of keepsake book to remember their school days by.
When we talk to schools that don’t do yearbooks, we often hear that they want to offer yearbooks, but are worried that it will be too much work for school staff. Not to brag, but we are yearbook experts, and we’ve seen enough to know it’s totally possible to put together a successful yearbook without burdening office staff or teachers.
Read on to find out our top tips on how to start a stress-free yearbook!
Start early
Sure, if you start in April, it’s not too late to put together a yearbook before the end of June. But this is just like when students start a project the night before it’s due – and we all know that while it can work out, it won’t yield your best work.
Remember, the early bird gets the worm.
By starting your yearbook before the winter break, you’re giving your yearbook team enough time to get organized and get comfortable with the roles they’re in. The end product ends up turning out much better for it, too.
Involve students
Yearbook clubs or committees are a ton of fun for students to be in, and it’s one of the best extracurriculars for preparing students for further education or the workforce.
Working on a yearbook helps students improve their teamwork and organizational skills, and it even allows them to develop skills that will help them in a future career, like journalism, writing, graphic design, and more.
Besides the skillset payoff, students appreciate having the ability to make their yearbook their own, and by the end of the year, will surely feel proud knowing they helped to make it happen.
Choose a yearbook partner that provides support
Not all yearbook providers are created equally!
One of the first hurdles is organizing the individual student photos. This is a big job no matter the size of your school. At Edge, we create these pages for our school partners, meaning that nearly 50% of their book is already built before they even start working on it.
You’re bound to run into bumps somewhere along the road during your yearbook build. Maybe you can’t figure out the software, or you want feedback on the pages you’ve created. Be sure to choose a yearbook provider who has a dedicated support team.
Let software help you save time
Different yearbook providers offer different software for building your yearbook, and some are more user-friendly than others. Look for a provider with a software that offers a simple, drag-and-drop interface.
If you can automate any part of your book build, you’re well on your way to a stress-free yearbook. A facial recognition software helps to cut down on time spent organizing your candid photos and leaves more to perfect your yearbook writing and design.
Of course, you should choose your facial recognition software carefully. For the most security, we recommend choosing a desktop-based software, rather than a cloud-based one.
If you sign or renew a yearbook agreement with Edge Imaging in the 2019-2020 school year, we’ll give you a free one-year subscription to Tag That Photo, a secure photo recognition software that automates photo organization faster and more accurately than Facebook and Google
Ready to get started on your Edge yearbook today? Send us an email at yearbook@edgeimaging.ca to get in touch!
