Student and staff portraits play a huge role in your yearbook. In most circumstances, portraits make up 25% to 30% of the yearbook. Planning for the school portrait photo day is critical because you will want to be sure to include every student and have each portrait be the best possible.
Here are a few suggestions for planning a portrait photo day that will include every student and faculty member on campus:
Meet with your school administrator to discuss your portrait photography needs. Many times the administration is involved in the school photographer selection process: Make sure the administration knows about your need for properly formatted portrait files. Ask the administration how they would like to be kept informed of all portrait photo dates and services provided by the photographer. Receive confirmation of your responsibilities—are you the person who schedules the date, or is the administration in charge of the calendar? Are you responsible for administration of the portrait program?
Topics you will want to discuss include:
Portrait photo date and retake date(s)
Services provided/Portrait files
Photo packages and prices
Selection of a photographer
Scheduling procedures
Meet with the photographer as soon as possible to review their products. Discuss the same topics you discussed with your administration. If the photographer is selected by a bid process, secure all documentation from your purchasing office pertaining to bid specifications, pricing, and services.
Once you have agreed to the logistics of the portrait services and the portrait photo date, and secured approvals of dates with administration, you need to develop a plan to promote the portrait photo date to everyone on campus. The best timeline for promotion of photo day is:
One month Before: Get it placed on the school calendar so EVERYONE knows the portrait photo day is coming. Get this noticed added to the school website and online calendar. Email parents so they are aware of the date.
Two Weeks Before: Put up posters to promote the date. Your photographer may have posters available for you to use. Post them all over the campus and be sure to put a message on your school marquee.
One Week Before: Send a message or flyer home, or email parents again, to remind them that school portrait/yearbook photo day is arriving next week. Let them preview package listing and prices and make sure they know how to make payment. Start announcements on the school intercom system. Get messages out on colored flyers in teacher boxes, lockers, car windshields and more. Make more school intercom announcements. Have staff talk to people in the lunchroom. The key is promotion for a good turnout.
Day of: Try to have your yearbook staff assist the photographer, as well as trying to sell yearbooks during photo day. Start selling yearbooks as soon as you start photos, so students can reserve a copy early.
Creating the student portrait section of your yearbook can be very easy IF you request a properly formatted file using the SPOA (School Photographers of America) guidelines. This properly formatted data file will save you time because it will eliminate you manually placing the portrait images and adding the names.
Communication is the key to receiving the correct portraits.
To assure best results do the following:
Schedule your school’s photo and retake days as early as possible. Work with your photographer to determine how you will provide the student data file. The student data file is usually available through the registrar’s computer at the school office. The data you will need is: First Name, Last Name, Grade, and Homeroom. This data is usually exported by the registrar as an ASCII file or CSV file (comma-delimited or tab-delimited file). If no such format is available, you can export the data to Microsoft Excel and then prepare the four columns as listed above. Save them as a comma delimited file. Your photographer can help you with this.
It is RECOMMENDED that your portrait file be furnished AFTER retake day. You want all portraits in one file.
Determining what is on every page of your yearbook can be a challenge when you first begin the process. What you can include in your yearbook is determined by when you want your yearbook to arrive. If you want to receive your yearbook before graduation (Spring Delivery), you will need to submit your book early enough to allow time for it to be produced and shipped from the yearbook publisher. Check with your yearbook representative for details. If you want graduation included in the yearbook, then you will have Fall Delivery for your yearbook (books will arrive after school reopens in the fall). The book will be submitted in the summer.
• Take the total # of pages in your yearbook and subtract the title, opening, closing, and division pages for all sections.
• Set a goal as to how many advertisement pages you will sell and subtract that from your total.
• With your remaining total, allocate a set # of pages to each section based upon the average %’s listed here.
• Next, review the chart on the next page to determine if you need to shuffle extra pages from your reserves to any section to meet the needs of a section. Start recording all the pages you think you will need. A great tool for accomplishing this is last year’s book. Just make sure the book did not leave anything out if you use it as a guide.
• Now choose the order you wish to place the sections in for proper impact. Please be aware that you do not need to follow the order sampled in the example. You
can choose to begin your yearbook with Student Life if you prefer, and then follow it with another section.
See the sample ladder listed here. In this example, we took the remaining 28 pages and spread them out to people(10), sports(10), and clubs(8) since this school has a very active student body.
Ending your yearbook on a proper page is important. All yearbooks are made up of either
four-or sixteen-page sheets called signatures (16-page signatures are required for Smyth
Sewn books).
Sample Page Allocation Chart
Total Pages: 288 pages
Title/Division/Theme: 18 pgs
Total Adv Page Goal: 50 pgs
REMAINING PAGES: 220 pgs
25%-30% for People: 66 pgs
15%-20% for Academics: 28 pgs
15%-20% for Sports: 28 pgs
15%-20% for Clubs: 28 pgs
20%-25% for Student Life: 42 pgs
REMAINING RESERVE: 28 pgs
Sample Page Ladder
1 title Page
2-3 Opening/Theme Story
4-5 People Division
6-81 Classes & Faculty (76 pgs)
82-83 Academics Division
84-111 Academic Pages (28 pgs)
112-113 Sports Division
114-151 Sports Pages (38 pgs)
152-153 Clubs Division
154-189 Clubs Pages (36 pgs)
190-191 Student life Division
192-233 Student Life Pages (42 pgs)
234-235 Advertisement Division
236-285 Personal/Bus. Ads (50 pgs)
286-288 Closing & Editor Page
1. Keep in mind a virtual yearbook is saved on an outside vendors server. Only 10% of web businesses last more than one year. What happens when the server disappears along with the vendor? That’s right, your yearbook disappears. All that money and time down the drain. A printed yearbook will last 120 years and you don’t need to worry about anyone going out of business once you have a printed yearbook in your hand.
2. Do you remember the fun of having all of your friends sign your yearbook with a message dedicated just for you? That is impossible with a virtual yearbook.
3. In some cases it may be beneficial to the school, students and staff to offer both choices. They may choose only a virtual yearbook, only a print yearbook or both. Since it doesn’t directly cost the PTA or school any money for either a virtual or a print yearbook give them a choice. Keep in mind there are many parents who have purchased a printed yearbook since their child was in kindergarten and they have every expectation of building an entire collection. Don’t deprive them of that opportunity.
4. Your virtual yearbook vendor most likely is not an approved yearbook vendor in your county. Probably for all the reasons stated above.
Endsheets are the thick paper that is attached to both the inside of the cover and the printed pages of the yearbook. You will notice that this hard paper is usually left blank in a choice of color or white for autographs from the student body, or it is designed in one or two inks or in full color.
If you do decide to design your endsheet, review all your offerings with us. Most schools that design their endsheets usually continue their theme development, as well as a table of contents of their yearbook on the endsheet. Make sure to note that you have two endsheets that make up your yearbook—the front endsheet and the back endsheet.
Many schools like to design the front endsheet, but may choose to leave the back blank. Other schools have chosen to repeat the same design from the front onto the back. Some schools include a colophon on the endsheet or in the advertisement section that describes the specifications of the yearbook for future staffs. This colophon can include basic specs such as the name of the yearbook publisher that sold the yearbook and took photos, technology, cover specs, endsheet specs, pages, copies, sales price of book, amount of ad revenue, staff listing, and more.
Be sure to review costs for production of endsheets with your yearbook sales representative.
The new Pictavo Tutorial Video and Community Webinar is now online.
View the videos online 24/7 by visiting our HELP CENTER! The 2012-2013 Welcome to Pictavo” video is 33 minutes in length and is great for demonstrating the power of Pictavo. It is designed for new advisers and staff members that haven’t seen Pictavo before.
The 2012-2013 “Pictavo BuyTheYearbook” video is 16 minutes in length and is designed for schools that just want to learn about the Pictavo BuyTheYearbook.
The best part about both videos is that they are short enough to be viewed during one class period or anytime that is convenient for the viewer(s)!
