Do you know why profile pages are very popular in the yearbook world? Well, there are plenty of reasons but I would sum it all up in 2 points.
First, it’s one of the only ways to make sure that everyone will appear equally in the yearbook. Second, it’s the last chance for everyone to share personal anecdotes and opinions in front of the whole school community.
So, what does it take exactly to create profile pages? If you want everyone in the yearbook, you’ll need to collect one or multiple photos per student, as well as their quotes or answers to your questions. Wow… Reading this you must be panicking a little bit but don’t worry: we’ve got you covered! In the lines below, you’ll discover how this tedious task has been streamlined in our online yearbook builder:
> You’ll learn how to plan your profile pages considering the number of students, photos per person and number of questions.
> You’ll discover how to create and customise fantastic templates in minutes.
> You’ll also see how Fusion allows you to collect photos and answers through an online questionnaire that everyone can fill in minutes – I’m sure you’ll appreciate the dozens of hours saved thanks to this process!
> Finally, you’ll discover how you can review their answers and photos before you generate entire profile sections in a click.
Ready? Let’s dive into it.
Want to Save Time on Your Yearbook?
1 – Plan your work
OK. So, how many students are there in your school? Do you want them all in the profile pages or do you prefer to make it exclusive for the leavers? How many questions would you like to ask them? Do you just want one photo per student or would you rather have a couple of different ones?
To help you think about it, I’d like to remind you the 3 types of pages you could use to do portraits in Fusion. This will also help you to differentiate profiles pages from others types of pages.
Photo, Group Photo or Profile Pages?
The Photo pages
If you don’t need to include yearbook questions, you can use photo pages. You’ll be able to display multiple students on the same page, with their photo and name. On the example below, you can see that we have built a layout with 12 students per page. We’ve created the first page and used the duplicate button (accessible when you hover over a page in the yearbook builder). Then, we’ve just changed the background colour. This way, you can get multiple pages very quickly, change the photos, the names and adapt the design to your liking, page per page.
The Group Photo Pages
Same idea than for the photo pages but even faster! Using group photo pages will allow you to display class photos in minutes. It’s the quickest way for you to have everyone in the book and, as you can see in the example below, it works exactly the same than above.
The Profile Pages
Here we go. Profile pages don’t really work in the same way. Contrary to the previous ones, you don’t need to use the duplicate button: by default your profile pages will be generated automatically.
You’ll just have to create a template, build a questionnaire and have everyone answer online.
Yearbook profile pages include the exact number of students, photos and answers you requested and strictly respect the design you’ve prepared upstream. They can look like this:
2 – How to create your profile pages in 5 steps
Keep in mind that, with Fusion, you have the power to create a profile section per class, a profile section for your teachers, a profile section for all year 12 students or whatever else. It’s your choice and there are no particular limits.
STEP 1: CREATE A TEMPLATE
Drag a profile page into your book and click the pencil button to edit.
When your profile page editor opens, name your section and click ‘Save’.
Then, select a layout depending on your needs (number of students & number of photos per page).
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STEP 3 – CUSTOMISE YOUR LAYOUT
– Set up you fonts first and save.
– Choose a background (it will open the page editor to let you choose or design the exact background you want).
– After saving your background, generate a page preview to see how your page will look like.
STEP 4 – INVITE STUDENTS TO FILL THEIR INFO ONLINE
– Copy this link and set up a password. You will give them to your students so they can fill their info online from home or anywhere.
When connecting, here is the window they will see.
– First they will have to type the password.
– Then they can answer your questions and upload their photos.
Each student just needs 5 minutes to create their profile and your whole section will be ready in no time!
After submitting their information, they will see a confirmation message letting them know it’s all done.
STEP 5 – REVIEW THEIR INFO AND GENERATE YOUR PROFILE SECTION IN A CLICK
– Click on review responses.
– You’ll see a tab with all the information submitted by your students. You can make edits if needed (replacing bad quality photos, fix spelling problems, etc.).
– When you’re ready, click Generate Profile Pages.
– Yay! Your whole profile section has been created in a click.
Example: if you have 10 students per page and 200 students in total, you will have 20 pages automatically created.
In the example below, we only did the test for 9 students, with 4 students per page. This explains why we have 3 pages: 2 include 4 students each and the third one includes the last student.
3 – Do’s and Don’t
DO: Think about the space on the page.
If you want to ask several questions to the students, you should select a profile page layout that will suit the length of responses.
DON’T ask questions that could generate the same answer for everyone.
Like on any other publication, space is precious. You don’t really want to ask a question for which you already know the answer. You don’t want to ask 2 or 3 questions that are pretty similar either.
DO: Give instructions about photo quality.
Since your students will be able to fill their profile by themselves, make sure you ask them to provide the highest quality and resolution possible. They have to be aware that bad quality photos could be blurry or pixelated when printed: what a deception would it be for them to discover their pixelated portrait on distribution day!
DON’T create a new profile page each time your page is full.
Yearbook profile pages are automatically duplicated by our online yearbook builder. Once your template is created, you don’t have to worry about the design: your profile pages will fill and design themselves! This is the actual benefit of the Fusion yearbook profile pages!
DO: Review all of the responses.
Encourage your students to proofread their info to make sure everything is correct and accurate. Then, check and double-check again before the yearbook goes to print. Involve teachers for this step, because they know their students, as well as their name spelling… and of course their faces (they will easily spot a wrong photo).
DON’T forget to crop all the images the same way.
Make sure everyone has the same proportions in the frame. This is the kind of details that will make your yearbook look very professional!
SPECIAL TIP: Remember that, if you’re not happy with the first result, you can make changes to the layout and re-use the same data. Make your changes to the layout, font size, type or page background and simply regenerate the profile pages to implement the changes.
Using Fusion yearbook profile pages has a real benefit: it will save you at least 50% of the time you would have used collecting all the responses and photos the classic way. The fact that the design and data are separated offers you great freedom: you can test different possibilities until you find the one that suits your needs!
Any questions about this feature? Feel free to leave a comment: I’ll get back to you within 24h!
What if You Tried our Online Yearbook Builder?
Julien Beuvignon
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