Woop, woop, yearbook!

Hannah and the journalism classes of Century High School with their many awards they won. Hannah placed 2nd that day in the layout competition, and would later win multiple awards for photography and writing from the National Scholastic Press Association.

I admit it. I was a full-blown yearbookie in high school. I was that girl on the sidelines taking photos, getting as close to the action as I could without getting in the way. I would interview students, trying to find a piece of their life to plug into a piece of history. I later went onto newspaper staff during college and I was still that girl on the sidelines taking photos, interviewing subjects and documenting collegiate life. Both experiences taught me so much about the importance of journalism. But it was my senior year in high school that sparked my intrigue in the journalism field.

I had started at Century High School in the late spring of my junior year upon a family move to Bismarck, North Dakota. I was not only trying to get my feet on the ground for the last couple months of school, but also preparing for what seemed like the year that would never come: my senior year. I had wanted to take photography, really. It ran in my family’s blood and I wouldn’t deny that I had the same knack for documenting life and playing with depth of field like my great-grandfather, father, and cousins did. Yet as I asked my classmates about taking a photography class, they said the same thing: the photography class was a joke. If you wanted to really enjoy photography, take yearbook instead. Upon debating between an invitation to sing in jazz choir and yearbook during my 6^th period, I ultimately chose yearbook.

What I didn’t anticipate is how much that decision altered the course of my life. That singular school-year inspired my soul, gave me lasting memories and friendships, and ultimately I came away with so much knowledge about everything from marketing to photography to writing to design. In that one 52-minute class every day, I learned invaluable lessons that ultimately led to my decision to go into journalism.

I don’t find it coincidental that President Reagan declared the first week of October in 1987 “national yearbook week”, the year I was born.
During an address, President Reagan hits on every point in why I loved yearbook,
“School yearbooks not only chronicle educational achievement and school tradition but are a part of them. For nearly two centuries American students have produced yearbooks to commemorate the accomplishments of the school year and to compose a lasting record, written and pictorial, of campus, classmates, teachers, and school staff.

In later years, alumni treasure their yearbooks for the memories they hold of times gone by and friends of long ago. The students who compile yearbooks likewise treasure all that the experience can teach them about teamwork and about writing, the graphic arts, and business skills. The practical cooperation and specialization that students learn in yearbook production stand them in good stead when they enter college or pursue other opportunities.”

I now find it an absolute thrill to work with a company that produces yearbooks. It’s so exciting to watch the creativity and hard work come through into a finished product for students to enjoy for years to come. I hope whatever little tid-bits I can give you will help inspire you to produce better yearbooks.

Were you or are you a yearbookie? What things did you learn?
*Woop, Woop, YEARBOOK!*

11 mistakes you'll never make with your yearbook.

We've all made those mistakes before. You know - the ones when you smack yourself in the head with a resounding "duh". Things like putting the cereal in the refrigerator and the milk in the cupboard. Forgetting to grab your lunch for work in the morning, therefore requiring you eat out...again. Locking your keys in the car. (I adamantly deny doing any of these...in the past month.)

There's a lot that can go wrong with making a yearbook. Some of those are "duhs", while some of them aren't as logical.  We all make mistakes, and though I know you want to believe both you and your yearbook are perfect, most likely it won't be perfect at all. Learn from others' mistakes (namely, mine) and take them to heart. Your yearbook will still probably not be perfect, but please, save yourself from the hair-loss and heart palpitations and relieve yourself the stress you could've avoided.

Here are the top 11 mistakes you can avoid:

Content:

1) Misspelling your school's name and book title. Or not having it included at all. And yes, even the professionals get it wrong sometimes, including several newspapers that have misspelled their own names. The New Hampshire’s Valley News even misspelled its own name on the front cover. Don't let that be you. If you're building a yearbook, also remember that book is a timepiece. Remember to include the address and contact information for the school.

2) Misspelling Students and Staff's names. If you trust yourself to get everyone's name right, you will misspell every person's name but your own child. Guaranteed. If you trust yourself to check it a few times by yourself, you will misspell several people's names. Guaranteed. If you have multiple people double check the same list, you might get them all correct. But you still might misspell one or two people's names.
That's how it goes.

When I was a senior on our high school dance team, each member received a DVD of all the performances and team interviews. We summoned a fantastic local film producer to do so. He even made our opening credits with each of our team members like The OC theme. (Yes, I realize this dates me.) 9 out of the 14 of us had our names misspelled. I will forever be immortalized on that DVD as Hana Davis. I was fortunate, as you can still pronounce my name correctly with that spelling.

3) Illogical or silly grammatical mistakes. You may be known as the grammar nazi in your circle of friends. You may even be an actual English teacher, giving lectures on the proper sentence structure and the proper use of the English language. Heaven forbid there's a preposition you end a sentence with. (See what I did there?) But even the demi-gods are fallible. You are not impervious to the travesty of silly grammatical mistakes. Automatically assume that you have either misspelled something or used incorrect grammar and you are far more likely to catch these mistakes before printing.

4) Accidental content not scheduled to be included. Sometimes adding correct content gets missed. If you fill it with place-holder text (also known as Lorim Dipsum) it's easy to pass by. If you fill it with actual sentences that mean something, it's still easy to forget.

During my first year on editorial staff on my college newspaper, we'd fill in the headlines and captions with incredulous statements. Some of them were hilarious, but inappropriate, and we would certainly not want them to print. Some of them were hilarious, and perhaps even uplifting, but again, not intended to print. Unfortunately, the latter happened one time. The particular caption read, "Ron Ginn is pretty much the nicest guy I've ever met. A picture of him and the class will go here." Ron Ginn actually sent an email to the editor of that section thanking him for the kind compliments, though he was sure that wasn't what was intended to print. It wasn't. But it could have been much much worse.

5) Including the usage of modern day shorthand writing for texts and tweets. With only 140 characters to use, sometimes you just have to use "U R" vs "you are." But keep it out of print. Find another way to word the sentence if you're already full. Or if you're trying to be cute, try to put this in perspective of 50 years from now, where texting shorthand has probably changed drastically and unlikely to make sense. I used to write personal blogs with shorthand trying to be cute. "We had a gr8 time in NYC! It was a blast! I got 2 C the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty. It was sOoOoOo PrEtTy!"
Honestly. How much of that was fun to read? Exactly. (I still make myself throw up a little every time I read that.)

6) Not looking at every page of the PDF to make sure it exported correctly. I know, I know, computers are smart. Right. Look where that's gotten Windows Word. Every page in the PDF has different elements on it. For the most part, it will flatten the layers correctly. But every once in a while, those little dashes or graphic elements you added to embellish the corners just didn't get there right.

Set-up and Layout:

7) Not talking to your printer before you begin working on your book about content settings. There are terms you probably are unaware of that you need to be and specifications of your book that, if unknown, can create nightmare-inducing scenarios. Here's a short list of things you need to be aware of:

• Page count, the variance you're allowed and any price changes that may occur

• End sheets

• Two-page spreads

• Bleed vs. No Bleed

• Paper types

• Cover types

• Color vs. Black & White, and what that means for pricing and content setup.

• Acceptable files and proper setup

• What software programs are allowed and recommended for your situation

• Schedule of deadlines and turnaround time

Organization:

8) Not giving yourself enough time. We've all been there. The all-too-many all-nighters I pulled in college because I didn't prepare myself enough ahead of time and schedule my homework still haunt my dreams. 
Yearbooks are called yearbooks for a reason. It's a compilation of everything from the year. 
Most likely your printer is going to give you a schedule of deadlines and due dates for certain things. Take a look at it and plan accordingly. That also means planning your entire book in advance. You don't have to have all the content. But knowing what pages will be what and getting a general layout done for each of them is sure-fire way to be done ahead of schedule. 

If you're late on your deadline, that means that you will have to be fit in for when the printer's schedule allows, which, during yearbook season, is far from easy to find. 

9) "I can do it alone." This is by far the biggest lie you could ever believe - if I dare say, even in life in general. "But I work better by myself. Trying to keep track of everyone else is too much work" you say? Then I dare say you're micromanaging. Being a good leader in life is about knowing what tasks you can give to others to accomplish and helping them reach your collective goals. Divy out the things you know are not your natural gifts. If you are better at design and not the sales and financial aspects, then find someone else to do the sales and financial aspects. If you don't know the first thing about photography or design, then enlist someone who would know, even if they're not experts either. Know your strengths and weaknesses, then divy out your weaknesses to those who can help you along. 

10) Attempting to finish your project at midnight. (See #8 for how to best prevent this.) Your brain function is simply not functional at that time, no matter how late of a night-owl you really are, or how important it is to get out THAT night. If it's due the next morning, get some sleep, wake up and grab a cup of coffee and restart then. However, again, applying #8 to your life will drastically reduce your stress level and allow for many more rested nights of sleep and fewer gallons of coffee. You'll thank me later. (Take it from someone who learned too late in college that editing my final drafts at that time was not a proper decision for the grades I sought.) 

11) Not utilizing social media. In my days of yearbook in high school, social media didn't exist. With a high school of topping 1,000 students and a staff of roughly 10, you can imagine our struggles to get names and captions for photos. Now, you may be in a homeschool group. You may very well know everyone in your school. But what I bet you didn't know is that involving the whole community through social media will stir excitement about the finished product, therefore increasing sales, as well! Use facebook groups to update the whole community about what days school pictures are, or if you're in need of photos from that field trip you want to include but have absolutely no photos of. The best part of setting up facebook groups is that you can share files, whether it be high-resolution photos or low-resoution PDF's to preview a few pages of the book. 

Scrapbooks vs. Yearbooks - Writing 101

When I think of a scrapbook, I think of my 20-something friends and their midwest moms, spreading around dozens of tables with hundreds of 12x12 pre-designed sheets of paper, 20 kinds of tape and glue, several copies of each photo from their family vacation to Medora, North Dakota, and hours upon hours of creating each page.

They are beautifully handcrafted and are special for bringing them out at life events...you know the ones: 8th grade, high school and college graduations, wedding showers and baby showers.

But a yearbook should not be a scrapbook. A yearbook is meant to provide glimpses of history in your child's life through the eyes of the school. Unlike scrapbooks, your yearbook will be archived for years with the school, perhaps eventually enter the town's library.

One main element that separates a scrapbook from a yearbook is writing. You've heard the saying "A picture's worth a thousand words," but just like comparing a movie to a book, there are elements you cannot conjure with only photographs. Your writing should capture a moment, a focal point of life.

So how do you write a good story? Let's start with how to write an attention-grabbing opening paragraph, or in journalism terms, the lead. (Note: "The lead" can also refer to the opening sentence.)

First, figure out how you want to approach the story. Look for the perspective in which you'll write. Perhaps this is through the eyes of the water-boy for the basketball team or a behind-the-scenes account of this year's spring production of "Oklahoma!"

Next, take notes. Then take more notes. The only time your pen should stop (or thumbs tapping away on your iPhone) is when you're processing information, and sometimes not even then. Write down what your five senses are telling you.  Does it smell like sweat or hairspray? Is it dark? Is it as quiet as a library or as loud as a rock concert? Maybe there is a taste involved, such as the taste of the lunchroom's choice of a rubbery hot dog. Taste can also be metaphorical, like the taste of victory. What can you physically touch? Does sweat drip off the cheer team in cups as they practice endless stunts and tumbling? Is there a chill to the air as autumn gives way to its cold mistress, winter?

Using these five senses, we can create an opening that will lure your readers in by creating the atmosphere.

Now it's time to practice on your own! Use the following prompt to write an opening paragraph using each of the five senses. If you get stuck, take a look below for ideas.

The setting: Football Game night at the championship game. You are in your hometown's locker room, just minutes from the game-time warmups, observing their pre-game ritual. Outside, fans pour into the stands.


example:
An odd quiet stirs in the dimly lit locker room. No one else speaks as the coaches mutter in the corner about last-minute strategies and scenarios. The muffled sounds of the pep-band and a crowd already boisterously shouting filter through the tunnel and into the room. Senior Defensive Tackle Jared Allen hunches forward and stares at his feet as he sits, his left leg bouncing in nervous anticipation while Senior Quarterback Christian Ponder tucks his older brother's lucky dog tags into his cleat. On the unseasonably warm November night, the taste of victory hangs as thick in the air as the stench from 30 pairs of unwashed sweaty socks. "Our game, Our year, Our time" the banner says in bold maroon and gold, hung proudly above the lockers. Only time would tell if, indeed, it will be our year.

Creating a story can give your audience a back-stage pass into a piece of history they would never have otherwise experienced. If you include these pieces of writing, it will bring to life the stories a photo could never tell.

Coming up: Caption Writing!