Yearbooks Prove a Worthwhile Niche for School In-plant

It all began with a question.
Someone in the Hemet Unified School District approached Reprographics Manager Karl Melzer and asked him if his in-plant could produce yearbooks. He took a look at the sample yearbook presented to him and was appalled by what he saw. Its “cookie cutter templates” made it look just like every other yearbook, it was missing pictures of spring activities and even some students, it was printed in black and white, and worst of all it cost too much.

It didn’t take him long to give his answer.

“We can produce a better product, that’s more custom to your school, for less,” he replied.

Last month he made good on his word. His three-employee in-plant in Hemet, Calif., produced 3,000 yearbooks for 10 elementary schools in just eight days. Pages were printed on a Xerox 700 and bound on a C.P. Bourg perfect binder. A Graphic Whizard UV coater was used to make the covers shine. Charging just $10 a book, Melzer estimates the in-plant is saving the schools $6 a book, or $18,000 total.

But even better than that, he says, the yearbooks just look so much better than ever before. For one thing, every single child’s picture is included. Commercial yearbook producers traditionally require all photos and information by February, leaving out any new students or those absent when photos were shot.

“We will actually go out to the schools and take pictures of any students that missed picture day or that enrolled into the school later in the year,” Melzer says. “It is our goal to have every child in the book and in the right class all the way up to the week before school is out. That’s a service commercial companies can’t provide.”

The same goes for school events. Teachers were asked to send photos after school activities ended, which they did up to a week before the end of school.

What may seem a confusing labyrinth of a project was in truth not that complicated, Melzer says. After picture day in the fall, the in-plant imported student photos from a CD and confirmed the names and classes. In-plant employee Larryssa Arnett designed the books, adding pages throughout the year as teachers sent photos and information. Schools reviewed proofs and decided on page order and backgrounds. As a result, each book has a different look, Melzer boasts. Covers were designed last, with Arnett offering ideas if schools had none.

Yearbooks were designed using Microsoft Publisher—mostly because it was easy to use and would allow schools to participate in layout. But Publisher’s limitations did throw up some roadblocks.

“The file sizes are so enormous,” remarks Melzer. Saving those large files became so troublesome that books were split into two smaller files.

Once all the books were finished, they were printed two-up, cut, bound and delivered, just in time for summer break. One added plus, Melzer remarks, is that if a parent forgot to order a yearbook, the in-plant will happily print them one.

“We’re willing to print on demand,” he says, “so if you need five more, we’ll run five more.”

Trying getting a commercial yearbook printer to do that.