This document provides 15 suggestions for improving a school yearbook operation in 2015. It encourages striving for excellence in every aspect of production. Suggestions include being the top information source on campus, covering all aspects of student life, finding new angles on routine topics, putting faces to issues through personal stories, demanding high-quality images and captions, engaging readers on social media, and ensuring accuracy and attention to detail. The overall aim is to inform and engage the reader while documenting the year in an authentic way.

1. Logan Aimone, MJE
Permission granted for educational classroom use only.
http://slideshare.net/loganaimone
http://loganaimone.com
15 for ’15
Improving your yearbook
operation this year
Y E A R B O O K E D I T I O N

2. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Why try?
•Improve constantly. Build on what worked in the past
and innovate.
•Experiment. What you do, and how you do it, should
evolve over years. Figure out the best practices for this
book, this year.
•Engage. Great stories and images yield an engaged
audience. You want both.

3. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Try some new endeavors to improve
your yearbook operation.
!
Think about these 15 areas as guides
to excellence for 2015 and beyond.

4. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Be excellent.
• It probably goes without saying, but: Strive for excellence.
• Excellence isn’t settling for pretty good.
• Good enough is not good enough.
• Demand the best from every person. Every photo, caption,
story and design, too.
• Set goals to improve with each deadline.
1

5. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
• Be serious about being the top information source and
archive for all things about your school.
• If someone wants to know a fact, score, date, record, time
or whatever — be the place they turn for that information.
• Own sports stats, especially JV and lower squads. No other
source is recording this information in this way.
Be the top source.2

6. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Go to the audience.
• Learn about your audience. Discover the diversity among
your student body.
• Bring that diversity to your staff. Incorporate a range of
voices and experiences, even if you have to modify the
rules or traditions for contributors.
• The audience is also beyond your school/student body.
• Balance your responsibility to history with creating
something people want.
3

7. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Cover the year.
• Cover the required components but also things your
audience likes.
• Showcase the fabric of student lives outside school:
recreation, leisure, hobbies, jobs and student views.
• Demand enterprise. Dig around to find something
newsworthy and interesting from this year. Write it in a
compelling, interesting and useful way.
4

8. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Capture this year.
• What’s popular? Why?
• What images, symbols, colors, phrases, songs and people
are being talked about this year?
• Don’t have a rigid design. Build in flexibility to your ladder
to cover topics that come up after plans are set.
• Set aside your own preferences in favor of capturing the
look and feel of 2015. But don’t abandon classic looks.
5

9. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Look for a new angle.
• Find a new way to present the routine. If new angles aren’t
not obvious, keep asking questions until you find them.
• Do research to understand the topic. Know what you are
talking about before approaching sources.
• Ask the people involved in the activity what they would
want people to know about their activity. How are they
misunderstood or stereotyped?
• What would people be surprised to learn about them?
6

10. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Put a face on issues.
• Don’t just write about issues (or things, or ideas).
Write about people.
• The most widely read and most liked stories are those that
tell interesting stories about people.
• Your school and community are full of these stories.
Localize national issues with the stories of people around
you.
7

11. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Meet sources in person.
• You can’t really get a story unless you get out and talk to
people. In person!
• It’s obvious when a writer has observed and interviewed in
person.
• Include the observations in your writing. Bring the details
to the reader through your photographs.
• Email or chat interviews fill a need, but they are not as
effective as being there.
8

12. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Demand great images.
• Most of the yearbook is photography, which can make or
break the book. Invest time in teaching each staff member
to take usable photos that are…
• In focus
• Well composed
• Candid
• Leave every assignment with images that are wide (scene-
setting), mid-range and close-up to give designers options.
9

13. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
• Spend as much time on captions as on copy. Most readers
will read captions right away.
• The captions must be engaging, too. Each one should
contain the basic identification information and a
description of the action.
• Great photos deserve great captions.
• Great captions can’t save mediocre photos.
Commit to captions.10

14. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Get alternative.
• Are there better ways than text to tell the story?
• Lists and the trendy “listicle”
• Quizzes
• Charts, tables and graphs
• Maps and diagrams
• Use these when the solution is more creative and more
effective than traditional text. Don’t just get lazy.
11

15. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Engage socially.
• Engage. Use Facebook, Twitter and especially Instagram to
interact. Post links to content and get tips from readers.
• Monitor. Listen to the conversation. Ask followers to let you
know about events occurring outside school (or at school
but not known). Or search by #hashtag.
• Solicit. Let readers submit photos and ideas to you through
these platforms.
• Tease. Preview the book to build excitement (and sales.)
12

16. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Do fewer…
• … superlatives that feature the same students as other
sections. Find ways to showcase a variety of students.
• … cliché stories on topics not tied to a news event. Make
sure you have a news peg to include the story. Then
localize.
• … boring stories that aren’t about people. Feature your
students and staff and what makes them interesting in
2015. Dig!
13

17. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Follow the law.
• Obey copyright.
• Only use “fair use” images or get permission.
• Flickr and WikiCommons each allow searches for Creative
Commons or public domain images.
• Know privacy rules.
• Know your rights.
14

18. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Details matter.
• Your mistakes are forever.
• Grammar, spelling, punctuation.
• Spell every name correctly. Don’t mix up students with the
same name.
• Have discipline when it comes to standards for style, design
and color. Enforce the standards.
• If you’re doing it, do it right.
15

19. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Remember the audience.
•You must think about what the reader needs and use
storytelling tools to meet those needs.
•Your role on campus is to inform your audience and
record the events of the year.
•You have a responsibility — an obligation, even — to
take that seriously and to do it well.
•Your audience needs you to tell the story in a truthful,
authentic and teen-oriented way.

20. 15 for ’15: Yearbook Edition
Go be great!
@loganaimone
http://loganaimone.com
slideshare.net/loganaimone