Blog Post 9

Haley
Blog Post 9

Working on the yearbook is still hectic as always. I still have to pick the main colors for the book, as mentioned before. We also have been brainstorming design ideas for pages. For example, we’ve been putting in graphics of a splatter that match the front cover and sticking in a class year, like Class of 2013. (The graphic goes at the top of the page with a gradient spreading out from the center of the page.) The splatter is black, while the text within is all colors, just like the cover.
We’d also like to do something along these lines for the page numbers, but we haven’t decided if we will be left with enough room for that, what with the ads that run along the bottom of the page. The staff also must go sell ad space to local businesses in the spring.
Paul Maxwell, who is now my new mentor, replaced Jordan Hall. He came to visit the staff yesterday and brought some helpful hints with him. He informed us of a help hotline that can always be dialed, where a team somewhat similar to the geek squad is ready to help answer any questions you may have. He also printed us off a manual on how to operate the website, www.yearbookavenue.com. This should help us out a great deal, since none of the staff or our adviser have worked on this website in the past. Paul also showed us that there is a Check For Errors button available when working on your page. That should also be very convenient.
One feature of the Josten’s website requires pictures to be tagged for indexing purposes. This entails going to each uploaded photo and identifying who people are in the picture. I’ve been busy registering people in the photos. So far, pictures of the junior class, sophomores, and the junior high have been uploaded and tagged. There’re also a few photos of the One-Act play at the ready.
Naturally, the yearbook cannot be finished by the time school lets out. It is usually the duty of the yearbook staff to work diligently throughout the summer until their product is complete. This year will be no different. Luckily, we should be able to borrow a lot of material we’ve already used for the newsletters and use that information to make writing our articles as stress-free as possible.
So far, the biggest obstacle I’m facing is arranging page layouts and designs. I think once we have developed a basic setup and applied it to each page, it should be fairly easy to simply add in captions, pProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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tures, and our stories.
Mrs. Rahn and I have been trying for a while to come up with a scheduled time for us to work for an hour a week (this not counting the time spent in class with the other staff members.) We have tentatively decided to meet on Thursdays after school for an hour, and hopefully that helps us make some progress.

Blog Post 8

Things have been going fairly well for my project, and so far I’m in the planning stages. I’ve picked a cover and a theme: “But who’s counting?” The theme throughout the book will have references to numbers. Inspiration can be fleeting, but I found it when I met with a representative from SDSU. I was handed a brochure for the college, and on the back it featured a table entitled ‘SDSU by the numbers.’ It had several facts about the school, like student to faculty ratio and the like. I’m hoping to make a general table of facts in the introduction of the yearbook, and I can add other relevant numerical statistics throughout. One thing I’ve counted and intend to include is the number of steps to the Rambler Stop. The other day the journalism staff walked there and averaged our numbers. I think, if memory serves, the average number of steps was 327. I did write it out in a word document and put it in the journalism file server for future reference.
I also had the idea of having the same font on featured on the cover of the book be repeated on division pages. (Division pages throughout the book summarize a section. Examples are Academics, Student Life, Fine Arts, etc.) Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out exactly what the font on the cover was. Luckily, Josten’s included a list of fonts to peruse, and I found a match! The font’s called Jasper.
Next, my job will be to pick the main colors for the book. Usually the editor picks around 7, depending on the number of Division Pages that are in the book. I have several color options bookmarked, and I hope to narrow down the choices in the next journalism class.
The book assignments are also complete. Hallelujah! Josten’s sends out a yearbook setup box at the beginning of the school year, and included was a paper Page Ladder chart. I spoke to each of the staff members and they all picked out which articles they wanted to write and pages they wanted to create. (The staff helping with the project consists of Ashley Krogstad, Sierra Trower, Jaynie Spier, Shelby Weston, Dacey Black, Christina Maher, and myself.) Once the written copy of the ladder was finished, I went online to Yearbook Avenue and entered in all the staff as members and helped them to create their accounts. One feature I love about Yearbook Avenue is that you can filter the view of the pages so only the ones assigned to you are visible. I think that will definitely help me and the staff stay organized.
I also gathered some information about the faculty changesProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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hat occurred this year so I can write up the article for the faculty pages.
I have also been busy finishing my research paper. I feel like it really helped me to understand the Josten’s website a lot better. I received a 94% on the paper.
I met with an obstacle for my project: Jordan Hall (my mentor) was promoted. This was great news for Jordan, not so much for me. His promotion meant that he moved to Kansas. As far as I know, my mentor selection won’t be altered, and hopefully I can still keep in touch with him via email. That’s about all I have for now!