1. When choosing the right yearbook company, it is critical to make sure that the end result will be the finest quality possible. Remember, yearbook covers and all the pages inside hold memories that will last a lifetime and you want it to be filled with those with high quality content and materials used in its construction. To ensure that, it is necessary to request a sample of the work that will be completed as well as information about the processes used in the development of your yearbook layout and design.

2. Affordability is important, but that does not mean you should sacrifice quality for price. With many schools questioning whether they should continue the practice of creating school yearbooks for students during the current economic times, it is a good idea to shop around to find the most flexible company possible to help create the appropriate yearbook to represent your student body. Make sure you will not be hit by hidden costs that can increase the costs involved.

3. It’s true that creating a yearbook is very time consuming and frustrating at times, but if the company you select offers great customer service much of the stress related to the process can be relieved. Good customer service representatives will help walk you through the process of all elements of design, but it is important to interview yearbook companies to make sure they offer the support you need.

4. A quick turnaround time will help you add important end of the year events to your yearbook, deployment book, or elementary yearbooks, but not all companies offer to finish projects in less than 12 weeks. However, by doing your homework you may find some that will guarantee a quicker turnaround.

5. Using software and other technological advances can be distressing when they are hard to use. For that reason, it is critical to work with a company with all the latest technology at your disposal. This will take a lot of the frustration out of creating your yearbook and make it much easier to accomplish.  The time honored tradition of having a yearbook to help maintain memories is something worth fighting for. Keeping the costs down and the quality up is just one way to ensure the continuation of a much loved tradition.

Elementary school is a time of learning many things, including the importance of purchasing a yearbook. These keepsakes will give your students a reminder of their youngest school years once they grow up. They can use them to learn about trading signatures, what you write inside a yearbook, and the importance of remembering all the fun times that they had while they were in a specific grade.

Introducing children to societal norms is what elementary school is all about. They will learn all about the yearbook tradition, from the importance of pictures to the traditions of marking up each other’s books, and begin understanding the importance of these unique publications.

It is important that your yearbook company understands this specific printing will be for elementary students. These younger children will require additional space for writing their not yet perfected signatures, and not as much space for fun events that the older grades require. Plan some time to allow your students to explore their elementary yearbooks, and learn what they should do with them. Have your teachers provide colorful pens and markers for the students to use as well. For design and layout ideas click here and here.

Your yearbook company will assist you in selecting the perfect mixture of content options and value that will make the yearbook affordable to any of your children’s families in this difficult economic time. For your young students, money saving options such as spiral binding or soft covers may make the yearbook more affordable, and easier to sell, to the student body.

One of the arguments that you will encounter, especially in the younger grades, will be that of appropriateness. Parents may believe that such young children do not need to purchase a yearbook due to the fact that third grade will be insignificant in the grand scale of their child’s education. These parents should be reminded of the elementary school’s purpose in educating children for the roles and positions they will hold in future society.

Parents sometimes need to be reminded of the fact that elementary school is a time of learning how things are done. You walk on the right side of the hallway, you stay quiet and orderly when in the classroom, you obey those over you, and you follow traditions simply because they are traditions. Adding the elementary yearbooks as a tradition for your students to learn about will not only educate them as to how to deal with yearbooks in the higher grades of public education, but also teach them the value of remembering their past and recognizing the achievements of their friends.

Elementary schools across the nation have cut back on their yearbooks spending, choosing to publish only the absolute basics of yearbook design, rather than using the school yearbook as the celebration of educational experiences that it should be. The foremost question when it comes to these cost cutting techniques becomes one of the appropriateness of special events in elementary yearbooks.

Here at Expressly Yours, we believe that these special elementary school events do have a place in school yearbook design, and we’re not saying this as an attempt to jack prices up. Regardless of the publisher that you use, it is still your responsibility to capture those priceless moments of childhood in the historical annals of your yearbooks.

Perhaps you don’t wish to dedicate as many yearbook pages to these special events as the higher forms of education do, but they are still an important part of life at your school. You should set aside at least some pages to cover these events, and to make sure that these memories are preserved for the administration, instructors, and parents alike.

While you may not have events such as school dances or proms to consider for these pages, your school does host a selection of parties and gatherings throughout the year. These get-togethers are the perfect opportunity for you to get some of the best memories on film, and to include them in the school yearbook. Among those celebrations to consider can be field events, school carnivals, home room parties, and any guest speakers or performance that arise.

You don’t need to dedicate entire sections of the yearbooks to these events. Unlike publications meant for older students, elementary yearbooks can be considered complete with two to four pages dedicated to these special, fun pictures serving as the buffer zones between grade level photograph collections.

But what about those pictures that don’t make the cut? Your teachers will doubtless take dozens of photographs throughout the year that, although perfectly good pictures, don’t make the cut for some reason.

Before the advent of digital cameras, getting pictures developed for the school yearbook was a costly process. There was no way to sort out the blurred pictures from the good ones, or to print only those that would be included in the elementary yearbooks design. With advances in technology, you need not worry about this cost any longer.

Pictures can be sorted through and placed in the yearbooks without ever needing to be physically printed. So let your teachers take pictures, and plan some spare room in your school yearbook this year for those fun memories in addition to the usual ones.

If you want your yearbook to truly stand out from the rest, you need to learn how to take these amazing photographs for yourself. When it comes to wording, layout, and the photographs included on each page, these responsibilities fall to you – the yearbook student.

Before you start measuring out to get everything equal according to the rules of photography, you need to remember that you can’t take the time to stop the action and stage every picture. A lot of yearbook publishing worthy picture taking must be done on the fly. As you learn what constitutes a good picture, you must likewise learn how to approach each situation without interfering with the action.

To do this, many photography students learn to view events entirely through the view screen on their digital camera. This concept is quite easy. You cannot capture a picture if you don’t have your camera on and pointed toward the action when the action is happening. If you’re taking pictures of a fast-paced game, a theatrical production, or everyday student life, in the time it takes you to turn your camera on and aim toward the action, it will be over. If you want to be serious about getting those amazing pictures, you need to be ready to take them when the time comes.

Now that you understand this concept, we here at Expressly-Yours want to teach you what goes into those amazing shots. The first aspect is balance. When you aim the camera, you are probably tempted to center your shot on the action. This is incorrect. The best photographs are taken according to the law of threes.

Look at your view screen, and aim your digital camera across the room from yourself. Now, imagine that you draw a standard tic-tac-toe board across that entire view screen. When you do this, you are splitting your screen, mentally, into three horizontal sections, and three vertical sections, at the same time.

Now, focus on those areas of your view screen where the lines of this tic-tac-toe board would naturally intersect each other. It is on these intersections that you should try to put the subject of your shot. Yes, this places the subject, or the action, slightly off to one side. This allows the eye to focus on that subject, while still capturing the excitement going on around them.

Your high school yearbook will be a lot more action packed when you follow these rules. You will find that your yearbook publishing layout will be more likely to meet with your instructor’s approval when all of your photographs are balanced in this manner.

There will always be pictures of things that aren’t appropriate for any publication associated with the military. We here at Expressly Yours are by no means implying that you have photographs that the public shouldn’t be permitted to see. What we are talking about are those questionable photographs taken during your service that perhaps shouldn’t be associated with your, or someone else’s military career.

That time that you and your friends got drunk and had a party in your underclothes? While it definitely was a good time, and one you should remember forever, it probably doesn’t need to be attached to the military’s name in the form of photographs published in your cruise books. These are the situations we’re speaking of.

Your navy cruise books should be a collection of photographs and explanations that highlight the best of your time in service. You should include photographs of the men and women who served alongside you while you valiantly served your tours of duty. Photographs of every person, their rank, and the awards that they won go without saying for inclusion in your deployment book.

Of course, there will be the photographs of time off that you want to include as well. These photographs should be tastefully chosen, representing the military well in their setting and themes. It is appropriate to show times of joy and celebration, including weddings, photos of adopted pets, and other fun times in your navy cruise books. However, you shouldn’t include any incriminating scenes that could damage others people’s careers.

When it comes to pictures of battles that you were in, you must take care that you only include photographs that are appropriate for the cruise books setting. As a general rule, you will want to avoid any pictures of actual violence, including blood stains or casualties.

You must likewise be concerned about classified materials showing up in these, and all, of your photographs. That map on the back wall behind the picture of you and your friends giving one another bunny ears may contain classified deployment locations. The exact size of the stash of weapons found in a small outlying town may likewise qualify as restricted material. It is your responsibility to make sure that these items don’t show up in your deployment book.

The best way to make certain that everything is kosher in your photographs is to run your finished navy cruise books layout past your superior officers before it heads out for even a test print. By verifying that all of your photographs have clearance, you can keep your own backside out of the proverbial fire.

Often, units will turn to traditional photography book printers for their cruise books to be published by. These companies are often expensive, and rarely offer discounts for bulk purchases. What you need to look for is a yearbook publishing company that can do your navy cruise books justice while still giving you the affordability that you require in the publishing process.

Small yearbook publishing companies are commonly overlooked for this process, although they shouldn’t be. A small company, one that specializes in printing small amounts of books, can give you exactly what you need for your cruise books without incurring all the extra costs associated with larger companies.

The details that you should look for in a yearbook publishing company are simple. For starters, you probably don’t require all that many navy cruise books to be published for your unit. Search for a publisher who can handle orders that are smaller. Many companies start with publishing as few as 25 books, which eliminates the need for you to waste time trying to find a use for the extra books that larger companies would require you to buy in order to go to print.

You should likewise look for yearbook publishers who can get your books to your ship, regardless of where it is in the world. Some companies specialize in getting their publications to even remote areas, which does make it easier to get the books to the next port your ship is due in at.

Another common problem with publishing navy cruise books is getting the draft of the book to look just right. Despite how well you designed the book, seeing it in the flesh before placing your order does make it a lot easier to catch mistakes and to make sure that everything is printed exactly as you need it to be. Make sure the yearbook publishing company you select offers this option to you as well.

Follow with the tradition of navy cruise books, and use your choice in yearbook publishing companies to get exactly the look and design that you are going for. By using a yearbook publishing company as your cruise book creator, you will probably get free end sheets as well, which will give you room for the traditional autographs and friendly exchanges that make the cruise book such a delight for everyone in your unit to have. After all, if you’re going to hold to cruise book tradition, you may as well make sure it’s a tradition that is done justice to.

We here at Expressly Yours want to be the yearbook company that helps students get the most out of their page allotments. We would suggest that you go about deciding on these pages in the following method.

1.  Determine how many pages your yearbook is permitted. Get this solid number from your instructor.

2. Take over one of the classroom walls for layout space. Don’t do this on the board, as tape and boards don’t get along very well. Cutting sheets of paper into 1/4 sheets, tape the right number of 1/4 sheets to the wall to represent each page in your yearbook.

3.  Calculate how many of these pages will be used by student pictures. How many pictures of freshmen through juniors can you fit on each page? How many pages will this ultimately require?

4. Calculate senior picture space. Seniors generally get bigger pictures than the underclassmen do, so fewer fit on each page.

5.  Write on individual sheets of paper what they will be used for. Freshmen Pics, Sophomore Pics, Senior Pics, etc. When you have these written, those pages will be assigned. Now, you can see how many pages are left to work with.

6.  Consider the traditional pages. Some schools enjoy senior baby pictures. Others show off photos of everyone in certain clubs. Assign these pages as needed. If you want to put more than one club on a page, go ahead and write it in that way.

7.  How many pages are left, and how many events are there to cover this year? Does homecoming get a half page or a two whole pages? What about the winter dance? Spring break? Consult your school calendar and get these pages assigned now.

8.  The pages that are left will be those that you can devote to random fun that happens at your school.

9.  Rearrange these taped up pages as needed to finalize your high school yearbook layout.

Perhaps a full page spread of a single photograph will make a bold statement about that event’s importance. Maybe your high school yearbook has room for various pep rallies to be covered. Use some of the remaining space for the fun dress-up days and other silly traditions that make high school interesting.

Check back with your yearbook company often for even more advice on how to get the best use out of your yearbook layout, and make your high school yearbook as amazing as it can be this year.

You know you have a camera with you in the field. You’ve snapped pictures all over the world of not only where you’ve been, but of your unit having fun and relaxing as well. You have all of these pictures, and all of these memories, and it seems a shame to just let them collect dust in a closet somewhere.

Many units, both army and navy, have turned to Expressly Yours to turn these memories into cruise books. The deployment book will give your unit a way to create a printed record of the action that you’ve seen. Capture the past year of your unit in pictures and words like a yearbook. Or, perhaps you want to create a memory of that intense mission that your unit shared. The deployment book is a wonderful way to capture all of these moments and keep them alive for future generations.

But most importantly is what these cruise books will mean to your family members once you ship them back home. You won’t have to put up with the nagging questions from friends and family. You can just hand them the deployment book, and walk them through your time in service, along with pictures and text printed on the pages.

There are, of course, friends who don’t make it home from deployment. The idea of cruise books gives you the perfect way to keep every one of those lost close to your heart. You can dedicate full page spreads to those that your unit lost, and keep their memory alive through photographs, stories and facts.

Here at Expressly Yours, we always hope to never see the full page spread of a soldier lost in action, but we know that it is a reality that we all must face. Keeping their memory alive in the deployment book is not only a way for you to remember your friend, but serves the family in creating memories of their loved one’s last days as well. When you’re ordering, make sure to send cruise books to the families of those lost as well.

Serving units commonly design cruise books for themselves for every year of service. Why not get in on this tradition, dating back to the 1800s and the Spanish-American War, by creating your own book today? Get together with your friends and see what pictures, and what memories, can be incorporated into your unit’s deployment book for this season!

While it is important that the teacher still maintains the final say in the yearbook layout, it is critical that you be permitted some creativeness in the layout design. Instead of just plugging in words and pictures in pre-designed templates, ask your teacher if some creative, new elements could be added.

One way that your yearbook layout can be spiced up is to make sure your pages have a balanced layout approach. Students who are working on the middle school yearbook have a bad habit of trying to cram the page full of bright colors, different fonts, and multiple images. When you cram all of this together onto a single page, you’re asking for disaster. Pages that are crammed full of pictures and different fonts take on a very busy approach. They are difficult to read, and if you chose the right colors, may even induce headaches in your readers.

You should always try to keep a yearbook page balanced in its layout. One of the most common methods for doing this is to divide the page into three more or less equally sized blocks. Here’s a few classic examples:

• Turn a sheet of blank paper to the direction your yearbook layout will be oriented in. Then, draw lines to turn the paper into three blocks.

• These don’t have to be all side by side or up and down.

• You have math skills, use them to figure out new layout techniques, such as a long, low block at the bottom and two side by side blocks above that.

Once you have your three blocks decided on, limit your design to using elements in those boxes. Add pictures in some, words in others. Remember to title the page. When you’re finished, take your layout design idea and present it to your yearbook instructor for approval.

If it turns out that your layout isn’t quite what the instructor had in mind, don’t get discouraged! Ask what should be changed, and keep yourself open to ideas. Most middle school yearbook classes approve of the concept of experimentation, and will welcome your creativity. However, you won’t know if your idea will work unless you try.

Your middle school yearbook instructor will have the final say as to what goes in to the yearbook, but you can help influence those decisions by speaking up. Some instructors prefer to just use pre-designed layouts for their yearbook creations. If you are restricted to a plug and play yearbook layout restriction, spend some time reviewing the available layout designs and pick the one that works best for your page and topic assignment.

We at Expressly Yours yearbook publishing can’t make the yearbook overseer relax – Yet. Until we do, you will have to be creative inside the boundaries set by your supervisor.

Within the bounds of what you are, and aren’t, allowed to do, there exists almost infinite creativity. Gone are the days of boring black and white pictures that take a roll-call of every member of each club in the school. You can feel free to express yourself in any manner you can design, all with the click of a few buttons.

Unleashing your creativity can take on many forms in yearbook publishing. The yearbooks that your plan will ultimately produce will be as traditional, or as exciting, as you lay them out to be. For a traditional layout, you can rely on the pre-designed templates in the software formats that we accept. You can take ideas from the yearbooks in previous years and copy the same old, boring thing that they did.

But if you want a yearbook publishing experience that gets truly creative, then you are going to need to bring that creativity to the table! Start by deciding what it is that you want your yearbook page to represent. Is this page about a special event, such as Homecoming or the Winter Dance? Is this page a chance for classmates to show off their wild side? Will this page be used in remembering who was in what club?

Once you’ve decided what the page is going to do, you can start creating. Most yearbooks start their layouts by putting a title at the top of the page, and going from there. Bor-ing!

Instead, start with the pictures that you want on the page. Don’t have the pictures yet? Go take them! Digital cameras are wonderful, and will give you access to picture so fast that the event may not even be over yet before the photos are being manipulated for yearbook inclusion.

So, get your pictures. Crop them, adjust them, play with the colors and the backgrounds, fix the red eyes. Once you’re satisfied, and the yearbook publishing instructor is as well, drop them on the page. Remember that anything too close to the margin may be lost in the binding process.

When you’re finished, give each picture an explanation. Put this text wherever – beside the picture, under it, running vertically on both sides, whatever makes you happy! As a finishing touch, put the title of the page wherever you can find room for it. If that’s the center, or down in the lower right hand corner, then go with it. Only by creatively designing each page will your yearbooks take on a life of their own.