Every school year feels like a whirlwind, so if you’re getting a late start on your yearbook creation this year, don’t sweat! This is the year where miracles do happen, and we find out we are all a lot stronger than we give ourselves credit for. You’ve got this! And if you don’t want to do it as a solo act, join one of our live webinars, including our popular Yearbook Quick Start session.
Step 1: Update Your Student Roster
The first step toward a quick yearbook build is to update your community and student roster. This seems tedious but will save you hours if you do this first. You will easily be able to tag to ensure inclusivity or to create an index. You will also be set up to start marketing and selling your book. Last but not least, this will make sure your books are sorted properly upon arrival saving you tons of time once they arrive, or shipped to the correct address if you’re shipping yearbooks to homes.
Step 2: Communicate with Your School Community
With an updated student roster, you can now effectively communicate with your community and launch marketing campaigns that support yearbook building and orders. Examples of communication that will help you build a better book include emails asking for photos, how to purchase books, and special features like creating custom pages and showing your students/parents how to create e-signatures.
Step 3: Collaborate with Your School Community
The best yearbooks include input from your community, even in a non-pandemic school year one person cannot be everywhere all the time. Following strong communication, you are set up to effectively collaborate on the yearbook too. Crowdsource photos from school staff, parents, coaches, and more. When possible, assign class pages to others, not only will this lead to spreads that are most reflective of school experiences, but oh yea, you’ll get to unload some of your workload. Win-win!
Step 4: Upload Your Students’ Portraits
Whether your school was able to take professional portraits or you are sourcing portraits from your community, upload these to your yearbook next. Most yearbook software will have an easy solution to help you with either path.
Step 5: Select Your Yearbook Theme & Style
Now that you’ve connected with your community and begun sourcing ideas and visuals for your yearbook, you’re ready to select and set up your book themes and styles. In addition to designing your own themes, there is a library of professionally designed themes to pick from when you’re in a pinch.
Step 6: Build Your Book
It’s time! Let’s build … take advantage of technology here! With features like auto-page layouts that magically lay your photos out beautifully on a spread or pre-designed pages that cover the best of…, and year in review, you are set to create a meaningful yearbook for your students and community to cherish for years to come. Still looking for more information? We’ve curated a giant list of ideas for you to steal for your community.
Step 7: Set Your Yearbook to Print Ready!
That’s it, you’re done. The final step is to set your book to “print-ready,” which ships it to the printers and if you’re using Treering, you’ll have your books in hand in 3 weeks or less. If for any reason you want a little more time, it’s easy to adjust print-ready deadlines too.
Clearly, this is still a lot of work, but we’ve included every trick in the book to make sure you are on your way fast! This is the yearbook that will be looked at for years and years to come. The year like no other.
