For small and medium sized schools, creating a
high quality customized yearbook can often be cost prohibitive.However, there is now a new option for
creating yearbooks that is far more reasonable for small and medium
sized high schools.
For small and medium sized schools, creating a
high quality customized yearbook can often be cost prohibitive. The
large companies that specialize in creating yearbooks for schools are
not set up to handle small runs of just a few hundred yearbooks. As a
result, smaller schools either have to pay a huge premium for their
yearbooks or do without. However, there is now a new option for
creating yearbooks that is far more reasonable for small and medium
sized high schools.
Instead of contracting with a large yearbook company, it is now
possible for smaller schools to print and bind their own high quality
custom yearbooks. In fact, there are several different binding systems
that are available to help schools bind their own yearbooks. The two
systems that are most commonly used for this application are Unibind,
and Thermal Binding. All three of these binding systems allow you to
create high quality hard cover year books in just minutes. Here is how…
The first step to binding a yearbook with any of these binding systems
is to assemble and print the contents of your book. This means that
your yearbook committee will need to work on assembling pictures and
text, laying out the photographs in a design program and preparing to
print the documents. Finally after everything has been laid out and
proofed you are ready to print the contents of your book on your laser
printer or high speed photocopier. You will probably want to use paper
that is heavier than your standard 20lb bond and might even want to
consider a glossy stock to give your books a more elegant appearance.
Now
that you have your yearbook printed, the next step is to choose the
correct size cover for your books. You can accomplish this by simply
measuring the spine of your book and rounding up to the closest size.
Choosing the right size of cover is very important for the
functionality of your books. If you choose too large a cover there will
be extra space in the spine and the bind will look sloppy. If you
choose too small a cover the pages will not fit in the spine or the
pages will not all come in contact with the glue and will fall out.
Now that you have printed the contents and selected the appropriate
size of the cover, you will need to make some decisions about the look
of your yearbook. A number of options are available for customizing the
look of your year book cover. The cheapest option is to simply add a
window to the front of the cover. However, most schools tend to opt for
foil stamping on the cover. This allows schools to add a logo or a
design element to the front of almost any color cover that they choose.
Foil stamping can also be used on the spine of the document to imprint
the year and the name of the school. For just a little bit more money
than foil stamping, schools can opt for a four color process printed
hard cover with fully customized artwork that is wrapped around the
hard cover. This is a great option for schools but can take as long as
3 months for production.
Finally after your covers are
customized and have arrived you are ready to bind them using your
binding machine. Every binding system works a little bit different.
However, the binding process for hard covers is pretty similar. Simply
insert your pages into the hard cover, insert the hard cover into the
machine and remove it after it has been heated. If you are binding with
thermal binding you will need to put the cover into a special crimping
device. Covers bound with Unibind do not require this extra step.
For most schools, the production of a single year’s yearbooks can pay
for all of the equipment needed to do the binding and can cut the cost
of yearbook production in more than half. Plus, it provides an
opportunity for students to take ownership in the production of their
yearbooks.
Jeff McRitchie is the designer and
Director of Marketing for MyBinding.com.
He has written over 100 articles on binding
machines, binding covers, binding
supplies,laminators,laminating supplies,paper handling
equipments,binders,index tabs, and shredders.
