There's More to the Yearbook Than Meets the Eye

A great deal of hard work goes into making the Ilion Junior-Senior High School Yearbook. There are pages to be created, pictures to be taken and cropped, text to be typed and edited. Ilion's Yearbook is produced as a combined project of the students in the Publishing I and Publishing II classes. The Publishing I class is made up of first year students. They are mostly juniors, but can also include a few seniors and sophomores. Publishing II is made up of second and third year students in the publishing program. These are the veteran students who play a leadership role in the class. They do much of the editing and organizing for the book.

The publishing classes meet at the same time and are team taught by Mrs. Wiley and Mr. Kohlbrenner. The students work together as a group to determine the theme, catch phrases, and the overall layout of their yearbook. Students are then assigned to small teams to develop specific sections of the book. This team approach is to help maintain consistency and quality of their section. Pages are assigned to individual students with the team being ultimately responsible for the completion of their section. Managing the many tasks of producing a quality yearbook is made easier through the use of some sophisticated technology.

Ilion's yearbook is produced entirely on computer. The equipment used to produce the yearbook allows for more creativity and a faster, more efficient way of producing the yearbook when compared to traditional layout methods. Most pages in the yearbook begin with a page template. Students type and place their text on the page and create boxes for placement of photographs. Pages are saved to disk and sent to publisher along with a laser print copy. Some the pictures and artwork are scanned using either the black & white or color scanners. Others are cropped to indicate what portion is to be included in the book and then sent to the publisher where they are scanned and placed onto the pages.

The main program used for laying out the yearbook is Adobe PageMaker. PageMaker is a program used in industry for desktop publishing. The yearbook publishing company, Jostens, provides add-on programs for PageMaker called Yeartech. The Yeartech add-ons give students access to additional menu items, and easy menu bar, template pages, and more. Microsoft Works is also used to type large amounts of text for the book such as the Seniors' Last Will and Testament and In 10 Years information. These blocks of text are then placed directly into PageMaker.

Working on the Yearbook requires a real commitment on the part of the students. It requires extra time effort, often including outside of class in the evenings and on weekends. Although students work as part of a team towards a common goal, they must also be self-motivated and able to work independently. When students have completed Publishing II course, not only will they have improved computer skills, but they also will have developed a sense of accomplishment by participating in the production of a quality final product. Mr. Kohlbrenner and Mrs. Wiley would like to thank, not only the yearbook staff, but also Mr. O'Brien, the former advisor, for assisting in a smooth transition last year.

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