Don’t wait until your deadline looms big, you are staring at myriad of layout choices and have a pile of pictures on your desk to decide what will go into your yearbook. Outlining your page content should be one of the first steps in creating your yearbook pages. Planning your coverage helps ensure you meet your deadlines and create an interesting and comprehensive yearbook.

Brainstorm Page Content

• Past yearbooks can be a good resource to get you started in the type of coverage you want to repeat and those events or activities you want to change out.
• Review the school calendar to determine which key events to include.
• Brainstorming with the yearbook staff the 20 most important or influential factors in their lives, in the lives other students and in the community. How might these ideas be portrayed through stories and photographs?

Fill in Your Ladder Diagram

• Determine which sections will be included in your yearbook.
• Allocate the number of pages for each section. Start with the portraits because this will mostly likely be the largest section. Once you’ve determined how many pages are needed for portraits, you can assign the remaining pages to the other sections.
• Review your brainstorming ideas and determine what events and subject will be covered in each section.
• If you have a black-and-white book with color pages, decide which events will be color (always submit color photos even if your pages are printed in black and white).
• Identify which signature will be submitted for each deadline. Determine what content will be your natural
  spread(s) and how you will want to utilize that space.
• If you are including Zoom A-Year-in-Review, think about the placement of sections or pages on either side of the insert.

Design Your Pages

• Select the layouts to be used for the portrait pages and activity pages.
• Decide what elements will unify your pages within a section. (How will you create consistency and avoid monotony in your page designs?)
• Determine how the theme slogan and logo and be incorporated into the page design and copy.