IF THE SHOE FITS
ORGANIZING YOUR YEARBOOK CONTENT
It used to be that there were formulas for all aspects of yearbook. Today’s approaches offer
lots more flexibility. If it’s logical and provides a better way to tell the story, it just might
work.
I’m older than Helvetica. In the 37 years I’ve been involved with yearbooks, a lot has
changed. In production we’ve gone from copy sheets to electronic submission with
InDesign. In design we’ve gone from columns to grids to modular design.
One of the most significant changes has been in our overall approach to planning the
yearbook. We’ve been freed from the days when section size and order were predetermined
and a sectional template meant placing a quote collection on every spread. Today, concept
drives coverage which drives design. Yearbooks can provide the readers with a great range
of meaningful information while maintaining strong, reader-friendly designs. It’s all in the
planning.
What the idea of concept has done for the world of yearbooks is open up more possibilities
for organizing our content. Instead of just renaming the traditional sections with spinoffs,
we think in broader terms - more conceptually.
Formulating a theme/concept is probably the first decision a staff makes. Once they make
that decision, they need to decide how to organize their content. The decision on how to
organize the story of the year should be based on the unifier. The theme/concept gives us
the angle or focus of our whole-year story. The next question is how to organize that story
so it is easily accessible by the average reader and makes some kind of sense.
It’s an important decision. Here are some things to think about when making it.
EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES
Options for organization range along a kind of continuum. On one end would be the
traditional student life/sports/academics/groups/people format. The other end of the
continuum would be pure concept. In between would be different ways of grouping the
standard sections.
Chronological order presents another option that has regained popularity in recent years.
With chronological organization, the book is organized by time, and the story is told by
days, months or seasons as the year progresses.
BE CREATIVE BUT LOGICAL
After exploring all the possibilities, think about what might make the most sense to the
reader. The best answer may be the standard, traditional five-section format, and there
is nothing wrong with that. Don’t feel you have to do something different just to do
something different.
On the other hand, your theme/concept might logically lend itself to another form of
organization. If your theme/concept is ‘Pieces of Eight,’ for example, it would make sense
to organize into eight sections. If your theme/concept is ‘Eight Days a Week,’ some kind of
chronological organization might make more sense. These kinds of unifiers present easy
choices.
But what if your theme/concept doesn’t deal with numbers or time? Those choices take
more thought and discussion. Let’s look at the process the East Lansing staff went through
a couple years ago to illustrate how that process might work.
The theme/concept was ‘Freeze Frame.’ The editors decided on a pause sign (two vertical
bars) as their graphic element. For months, as they planned, they discussed having four
sections: life, sports, academics and groups. The people would be placed in a separate
reference section. Then one day, as they were struggling to organize those four sections, it
hit them: two words, two shapes in a pause sign, two sections!
But what would those two sections be? So the question became ‘What are the two big
pieces of high school?’ Living and learning. Student life fit logically in living. Academics was
a no-brainer in learning. So they decided to just repackage the traditional sections. They
placed sports along with student life in living and clubs along with academics in learning.
BE ALL-INCLUSIVE
Whatever plan makes the most sense and opens up the best ideas for coverage, be sure it
allows coverage of every aspect of the year. You are, after all, creating a yearbook.
BE REASONABLE
First, remember not everyone is a yearbook nerd. The story - and the way we organize it needs to make sense to the average reader.
Last, don’t force the fit. Every aspect of the theme/concept from organization to coverage
to design should work together to make the story stronger. Don’t restructure your sections
just because the idea looked cool somewhere else. You’ll be sorry as you try to fit things into
a structure that just doesn’t work.
The following year, the staff at East Lansing returned to regular sections (academics, clubs,
sports and student life) plus a reference section which included all of the mugshots. In this
gatefold opening, they introduced the sections of the book.
Contributed by:
Lynn Strause, Herff Jones Special Consultant
East Lansing, MI
HJ PLANNER
No matter how you decide to organize your
book, HJ Planner makes it easy to track content,
assignments and page status. Elisha Strecker,
adviser, Eureka High School, Eureka, MO said,
“My editors and I love HJ Planner; it has saved
us as much time as HJ Index Builder did. Right
away we gave all the staffers the individual
reports showing everything they had due for the
entire year. Being able to color code and detail
the assignments is great. And we used to create
the folders individually and build each template
manually... HJ Planner is brilliant.”
Yearbook Discoveries