When it comes to the start of a yearbook project, it can be hard to know where to begin. If working with a committee, lots of you might have ideas on how the finished book should look, and if working alone, inspiration can be found everywhere – it can be hard to narrow down where to begin.
Organise your inspiration
We know that yearbook inspiration can be everywhere, but it can be hard to keep track of where you’ve seen a particular idea. If you spot a colour combination, page or image you’d like to use as inspiration, take a picture of it or screenshot it, then sort your images into folders. Share your ideas with the committee, or use a collaborative service like Pinterest to work on mood boards together, and get a feel for what people would like to see in the finished book.
Don’t forget to bookmark things you’ve seen on Instagram, where you can also organise posts into different boards.
Collaborate to choose ideas
When choosing between lots of competing ideas, collaboration can be a great way to narrow down your choices. Ask your year group or organisation which option they’d prefer, and put your ideas to a vote.
If your school’s closed and you can’t do this in person, no problem – online survey sites are really easy to use, and can collate results much quicker than in person. Take a look at services like SurveyMonkey or Google Polls – students can vote between choices and you can easily see the results. If there’s a clear frontrunner, it can help break committee tie-breaks, and opening up the yearbook to collaboration by involving the rest of your year group or organisation can help to boost your order numbers at the end of the process, making the book cheaper for everyone.
Keeping track
Your yearbook timeline can be really flexible with us, but it’s important that some dates are stuck to – there’s only one leavers day and graduation, and you’ll want the books to be there in good time!
Use the timeline in our quick start guide to write a yearbook to do list, and make sure that everyone on the yearbook committee is aware of when everything needs to be completed. If working with teachers (who might want to leave a goodbye message, and who will need to approve the book before it goes to print), allow them plenty of time to get materials to you and to proofread – these can take them longer, especially during busy summer assessment periods!
If you’re ready to get started or need any pointers during the yearbook process, our friendly support team is here to help – get in touch with them on support@yearbook.com for more information.