Whether a member of a newspaper or yearbook staff as a writer, designer, photographer, editor or whatever position it might be, the key to success is paying attention to the details.
In a high school paper that I currently work with, I am always amazed to find a static element (something that stays the same from issue to issue) sometimes looks different depending on the issue.
In the coming weeks I’ll give some additional resources to help combat these type of errors, but to start, here are some basic suggestions applicable to both yearbooks and newspapers.
“Marker up” your pages - for each section of your paper or yearbook, create a basic page that includes:
- Banner/Flag/Logo
- Headlines (different sizes and types)
- Sub headlines
- Cutlines/Captions
- Page Numbers
- Visual Elements (rules/lines/dots/etc)
- Byline
- Body Text (the story itself)
- Photo headlines
- Pull Quotes / Charts / Etc
Print out a copy of the pages with each of the elements and take a post-it note and write the information about each element:
- Font
- Weight (bold, black, thin, light, heavy)
- Size
- Color (or percentage of black)
- Leading (space between lines of text)
- Tracking (space between sets of letters)
- Kerning (space between individual characters)
- Indents and Tabs
- Tools (line thicknesses, colors, etc)
- etc
Write down EVERYTHING about each element.
Now many of you might have already done that and done the next step: CREATE A STYLE. Use the software program of your choice to define a style for every element. You may need to use the software help to determine how to set up styles. After the styles are created, make sure to teach your staff how to use it.
Styles are great but are not always used properly. To help ensure your staff is paying attention to the styles, copy those post-it notes to pieces of paper and post them in your computer room WITH the original document. That way your staff has not only a computer reference to the style but an actual visual sample and documentation of the style specifics in front of them.
I would suggest that one of the editor’s job is consistency for each issue. In addition to watching for other elements, this person would use a checklist (I love checklists, more on that later) to determine whether the style is staying consistent to what each page or section is supposed to look.
Send me your samples!
