Many people don’t realize the effort that goes into creating the Fluvannual yearbook. When thinking about the yearbook, if not a part of the journalism staff, you won’t know about the ins and outs of the making of the yearbook, and what goes on when a part of the yearbook.
As soon as the summer starts, the book for the upcoming year truly begins to take form. The editors and Yearbook Adviser Elizabeth Pellicane, who runs the Journalism classes that make the yearbook, meet up and start crafting ideas before the school year even starts. During this time, the cover of the yearbook is decided, and so is the pull-through theme.
“We go over the previous year’s yearbook, deciding what we want to keep and what we want to do differently,” said Senior Katie Bond, one of the 2024-2025 yearbook editors.
“This year’s yearbook theme came about with the idea of the past, present, and future. The theme ‘timeline’ perfectly captures how we all change, grow, and evolve during highschool. A yearbook is meant to tie memories throughout the school year together, and ‘timeline’ pulls all of the events together,” Junior 2024-2025 yearbook editor River McMillian said.
In the Fall and Spring semesters, the editors welcome new staff, some who have worked on the yearbook before, and some new students with fresh ideas. (Some students keep retaking Journalism throughout high school in successively higher levels of the class. In all, students can take the class up to seven times.)
When in Journalism during the fall semester, the pages of the book are still being created. The editors often ask for ideas to make pages and modules loved by the student body. Another task for the yearbook staff is to represent the whole school for how the yearbook should be designed. Opinions and constructive criticism are extremely important for the creation of the yearbook.
“Often times during class Mrs. Pellicane and the current yearbook editors ask the whole class what they think of certain ideas and new layouts. They listen intently and take our thoughts and suggestions into consideration. This collaboration makes the final yearbook, as well as the process of designing it, a more creatively, well-rounded experience,” Junior Maddy Hamel said.
The next step to the finish line of the completion of the yearbook is for the staff to work on the pages. This includes uploading pictures, having fun with colors and fonts, and getting quotes from people around the school. Teamwork is another crucial factor in the book. Self-editing your page can only go so far, so finding a peer to get a fresh set of eyes on your page is the next step after completion.
“It’s a lot of work, so having a big journalism team is so helpful. It helps to get the job done so much faster and more efficiently. Plus, we have a great classroom atmosphere that helps all the students get closer and build friendships through working together,” McMillian said.
Gradually the yearbook editors also look at each page, proofread and then re-proofread them for mistakes like name spelling, grammatical errors, and font and sizing before passing them on to Pellicane who reviews the pages multiple times before passing them off to Principal Margo Bruce to give each page her final approval. So by the time the yearbooks come out in print, each page has been proofread dozens of times.
“There’s a lot of tedious tasks that go into making a good yearbook, and it’s so easy to miss the little things. It’s a lot of aligning, revising, and looking for the small details, so mishaps are bound to happen,” McMillian said.
The same drill goes on for second-semester staff. The page selection is different while working on winter activities and spring sports. The process of picking who you put into pictures on your page becomes more selective towards the end of the year. As the book wraps up for printing over the summer, the staff cracks down to finish up the final touches.
After the yearbooks are complete and printed, the Fluco Journalism page on Instagram announces a time and date for graduates to pick up their yearbooks. At the start of the following school year, it is announced that during lunches you can go pick up your book. Many students tend to forget, which causes the new staff to go out and deliver them to their classes.
“We have many books that have not been picked up and we have no way of contacting them. We still have yearbooks from seniors 20 years ago. It is a lot of money to throw away,” Bond said.
If you are still empty-handed when it comes to a 2023-2024 Phases yearbook, visit room 4501 to pick it up. You can pre-order the 2024-2025 yearbook now at @jostensyearbooks.com. Make sure in the future to get your yearbooks when it is time to pick them up. Journalism is known to have a welcoming enviroment and has a unique job for everybody. When course selection comes around next year, remember this article and let Journalism catch your eye.
