Yearbook is half yearbook, half leadership.
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Being a designer on a team means you're the leader.
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Being editor-in-chief of a staff means you're the leader.
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Being in yearbook at all means that you will lead. This is how I approached it.
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Leadership
Picture of the Late Night Crew on a deadline. This photo accurately portrays the different personalities on staff.
I remember trying to not get off topic as someone points out the photographer practicing next to me. It's hard to get through a brief without "audience participation."
Every day, I prepare a start-of-class brief five minutes before the bell rings to present to the staff. How I make them says a lot about my style of leadership.
Tate's tried-and-true formula for a start of class slide:
Step 1: Important Information
At the top of slide, I have three "widgets": the date, the amount of over-covered people and the number of work days left before a deadline.
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The information blurbs are short, to the point and digestible. This is how I approach people work-wise as well because I think most problems in the world can be solved with communication.
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Step 2: Make It Funny
Just like how a spread needs a dominant, a slide needs something to catch the eye. Using current events and trends for yearbook jokes makes the daily brief stay fresh.
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It's easy to get caught up in the assignments and due dates of journalism so it's important to keep things friendly.
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Step 3: Feature Staffers
Making people feel seen is important for team building, but I've always been against shout outs for work. Because not every success can be acknowledged and people can feel slighted, I feature staffers by highlighting everything else about them instead.
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On the left, you'll see our photographer getting in the way of the local TV news's shot.
Step 4: Make Everything Unique
In yearbook, no news is sometimes good news. When I don't have anything to talk about, there's only so many ways I can put the words "Work Day" on a slide differently.
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If you do something too much you can get sick of it, so I try to never repeat myself deadline after deadline.
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This is one of the more important slides. I made it because I remember being a new staffer who felt that I was not as much of a part in yearbook than other people.
The left diagram is how Ceniad might feel. The people with more responsibility are favored more and there's a standard hierarchy.
The right diagram is how it actually is. When I presented this it got laughed at but it's true: we're all side-by-side in this yearbook box. Instead of asking for help by going up a tier, we can ask for help by turning to the side of us.
