How to Create a School Yearbook on Shutterfly
Back when I taught high school, I was one of two advisers for the school yearbook. After attending a national Jostens Adviser University, we were able to apply everything we learned in creating a publication that we were all super proud of. The lessons I learned back then still inform the way I write and design.
When I was presented with the opportunity to help create a yearbook for my daughter's class, I jumped at the chance to volunteer. For any of you who have taken on the task of designing a yearbook using Shutterfly, I've provided a step-by-step guide for your reference.
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Shutterfly nor do I receive any compensation for this post. (I just love their tools!) These steps are based on my experience from past years, and may not necessarily reflect the latest process. Be sure to work with your yearbook representative to get the most current information. As a point of reference, here's a Shutterfly post on their yearbooks, last updated in August 2017.
Phase 1: Set-up | Oct
Make sure your class is set up with Shutterfly Share Sites. Thankfully, our teachers already used that for sharing photos, so we were all set.
Get a yearbook quote from Shutterfly here.
Determine how many yearbooks you plan on ordering for the year, whether you want hardcover or softcover, and how many pages each book will have. It will help to know how much parents have paid in the past for a yearbook.
The first year we did this, we had parents fill out an online Yearbook Interest Form in the Fall to see how many families were interested in purchasing a yearbook.
Since parents wanted to cover the cost of the teachers’ yearbooks, we took that into account when determining the price per book.
Shutterfly will provide an instant quote when you indicate the number of pages and number of books you plan on ordering.
Expect a follow-up email or phone call from Shutterfly. Once they get a hold of you to confirm, you’ll be asked to electronically sign a no-obligation pricing proposal. The proposal will have the same numbers that you were given in the instant quote.
With regards to payment, you won’t have to worry about that until your yearbook is complete (i.e., sometime in the Spring).
Build a yearbook ladder*.
To stay organized throughout the year, we used the yearbook ladder template linked here.
If you don’t already have a ladder from the previous year, try to get a hold of a copy of the previous year’s yearbook and build a ladder from there.
An intuitive way to determine pages or spreads** is by identifying important events or activities for the school or class.
Leave at least one spread available to save for any major events that might happen that year. For instance, one year was the year of Snowmaggedon, so we asked parents to upload photos of their kids in the snow.
It’s helpful to know what date you plan on ordering the yearbooks so that you can account for what events can be covered before the yearbook goes to print. In our case, because we wanted the students to receive their yearbooks the last week of May, that meant that graduation wouldn't be included in the yearbook coverage.
For reference, the first year we did this, our deadline to submit the finalized yearbook to Shutterfly was May 15 with an expected delivery date of May 29.
Create a document titled "Yearbook Index," listing all the student names.
This will be used to track what pages in the yearbook each student is pictured and will ultimately become the index at the back of the book.
As the year progresses, you’ll add page numbers after each student’s name.
PHASE 2: CREATE | OCTOBER TO MAY
Choose a Shutterfly yearbook theme. You can see some ideas here.
Choose a template for each spread or page.
Typically, the easiest spreads to complete early on are the ones featuring student headshots (our class takes those photos at the very beginning of the school year).
As events/activities pass, drop photos into your spreads throughout the school year. Be prepared to send an email sometime in the Fall to introduce yourself and ask parents to upload photographs for any school-wide events (or other photos they’d like to share for the yearbook) to Shutterfly. Create folders for specific events.
As a past high school yearbook adviser, I am a huge advocate for including captions for each photo, even if it’s just the student’s name. Fair warning: the text boxes can be a pain to insert and re-size, but the captions and index are what parents appreciate the most year after year and, more importantly, it’s what ensures fair and equal coverage for each student.
When you’re close to completing the yearbook, insert page numbers. To save time, we only included page numbers on the right-facing pages. Again, text boxes are a huge pain to insert and re-size, but it’s a necessary step if you want to ensure equal coverage.
Pull up the "Yearbook Index" document that you created at the beginning of the year and add the page numbers of where each student is pictured. Since this yearbook was for a class of 25, we aimed to have each student appear in the yearbook at least 8 times (aside from their headshot) and switched out photos as needed. (Generally, if you’re covering an entire school, 3 times for each student is the rule of thumb.)
If your teachers keep a blog, (like ours do, thank goodness), you can also use that as a helpful resource. Our yearbooks have all been chronological and organized by season, so we included excerpts from the teachers’ blog posts that referenced specific seasons.
For the index spread, just copy and paste from the document that you set up at the beginning of the year.
PHASE 3: FINALIZE | MAY
Sometime in the Spring, distribute the Yearbook Order Forms to each family. Give them a few weeks to submit payment. For reference, we sent ours out a month before our deadline to submit to Shutterfly, and asked to have their forms submitted a week before our deadline to submit.
In our case, we collected checks from each family that were issued payable to our school.
Once you've finalized the yearbook (at least a week before your deadline to submit to Shutterfly), ask a teacher or another person familiar with the students to proofread captions.
When it came time to pay, I worked with the front office to use the school credit card to order. You’ll want to have the original pricing proposal handy so that you can indicate the features of your yearbook (i.e, how many yearbooks, how many pages, etc.) and shipping details when you place your order.
You’ll receive a more detailed set of instructions from Shutterfly via email because it’s unfortunately not as intuitive as you might think (at least for me, it wasn’t).
Provide your teacher (or whoever will be distributing the yearbooks) a list of families who placed yearbook orders. This will help keep track of who has/hasn’t received their yearbook.
Wait for delivery and celebrate when they arrive! Congratulations on a job well done :)
Did I miss anything? I'd love to get your feedback or questions. Happy designing!
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