Wednesday, December 1, 2010

TECH – eDesign New Features Release

Announcing these new features and enhancements to eDesign!

Double Clicks in Page Edit: previously, clicking the canvas with the text tool or shape tools caused a dialog box to appear for manual entry of shape settings. While this is similar to InDesign, most of you found it confusing, so this has been changed to a double click. Double click any empty part of the canvas with either the shape or text tool to get the manual settings dialog.

New Cropping Button: There is also a new cropping button in Page Edit. Select an image and the button will show in the control panel. This button allows the user to move the photo and frame handles independently. This is also a shortcut for this feature: hold Control/Cmd and double click any image. The usual “keep the frame where I put it” picture manipulation mode is still available, as well.

New Editor Permissions: Discussions with the IT Advisory Council and customers have led us to grant additional permissions to the Editor role. Now the editor can update portrait names in the library, flow portraits, move spreads, and run the index. Check the eDesign Help for a complete list of the permissions for each user type.

Library Save-As: Users are able to save candid images back out of eDesign by right clicking on the image in the library..

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

TECH – eDesign New Features Release

We’re happy to announce the release of several new eDesign features!

Smart Template
Custom Endsheets
Facebook Sneak Peek
Pop-in Fun Shapes (Beta Test): These can be found under Pop-ins > Fun Shapes (Beta). Try them out, and check the eDesign Help for a Cool Tips topic with ideas on how these can be used in your layouts.

Check out the eDesign help menu for videos and tutorials on all these and more!

Great Resources from other HJ Reps

http://www.theyearbookladies.com/theyearbookblog/

Thursday, August 5, 2010

TECH – eDesign Photo Features Release

We’re happy to announce the release of several new eDesign photo editing and management features!

Photo Editing: Picnik.com and Aviary.com are our partners for photo editing features. These tools provide a far more rich editing capability than anything that exists within a yearbook tool today. Picnik features are available in eDesign today, and Aviary features are coming soon.

To access the Picnik photo editor, right click any candid, portrait or art image in the eDesign Library or Library Panel. Click “Copy to Photo Editor” and off you go. There is also a new series of help videos that outline how to use these tools for common photo editing purposes. Please watch these eDesign help videos to reduce any confusion you or your staffs may have.
Aviary will become available within 1-2 weeks. When it is released, it will still be in Beta testing. Note that these tools require a connection to the partner site in order to work.

Save Images back from eDesign: Right-click an eDesign library image and click “Save Image As” to save a copy of the image back to your computer. Very useful if an original image has been misplaced, or you’d like to have an offline copy of a particular edited image.

Upload 50 images at a time: the upload limit has been expanded to 50 files at a time. Of course, you’ll still want to encourage photographers to screen out any images that aren’t usable, or are duplicates. Otherwise, the staff will have to comb through many more images to find what they are looking for.
Distribute Feature: Thanks to the efforts of the development team, the distribute function is ready for a re-launch! This feature had positioning issues previously, and has since been corrected. Simply select multiple page objects, and distribute buttons will appear in the control panel. (Note for the InDesign users: this feature does even distribution.)

Friday, July 2, 2010

TECH – eDesign Move Spreads Feature Release

Move Spreads: We’re happy to announce that the eDesign Move Spreads feature is available now! From the ladder view, click the Edit Menu > Move Spreads to enter a new view that allows the adviser to drag and drop spreads to re-arrange the ladder. Check out the new eDesign Move Spreads help video for additional information about this new feature. Logon to eDesign and click Help, then click the “More eDesign Videos” link.

Portrait Flow Character Styles: there has been an update to the Portrait Flow wizard. Now, the Character Style dropdown will default to the smallest style, instead of the larger Body Copy default. Note: this is no substitute for carefully reviewing the font settings before flowing, and proofing the page afterward.

Pop-ins: hundreds of GO! Design Pop-ins have been released. There are still a handful in the “Coming Soon” status, but those will be available shortly.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

MARKETING – Send Books Now for Consideration In Ideas That Fly, Volume 16

It’s time to submit books for consideration for inclusion in the next volume of Ideas that Fly. This edition will include summer/fall 2009 books and spring 2010 yearbooks. We showcase covers, photography, design and coverage as well as theme and overall concept. If you have a cool gimmick, or something new/interesting with your cover or in the way of tip-ins, please submit; we LOVE that miscellaneous section, but it can only be as cool as the books we get. Hearing about an incredible cover AFTER Ideas that Fly is done only makes us sad.

We appreciate if you flag your favorite spreads or photos, and it’s interesting to know the backstory behind the theme/concept, so if you want to have the editors mark a couple of pages for us or provide some details, that would be great.

Books must be received by July 1 to be considered. Please send them to:
Ann Akers, Ideas that Fly
Herff Jones Yearbook Marketing
9601 Monroe Road
Charlotte , NC 28270

We cannot return books submitted to Ideas that Fly as we also use them for examples in other publications through the year.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Annual yearbook contests, critiques and recognition opportunities

A couple things as you await your books and things begin to wind down:

If you want to get a critique from either of the national associations, send your books before you leave for the summer if possible. Both NSPA and CSPA have more people who can judge during the summer months and that increases the chance that the staffs can use the feedback from their critique to help improve next year’s book. If you submit in May or June, it is MUCH MORE LIKELY that you will have critiques in hand when school starts back up. Those who wait until September or October to submit may not have their results back until after the first of the year.

CSPA provides critiques for its full members; schools who pay by June 15 pay $199 and those who submit afterwards pay $259. If a staff wants to be a member and enter the contests but not receive a critique, the fee is $149 per publication per year. CSPA contests include the Crown competition (submit two books now; or the actual deadline is October 15, 2010) and the Gold Circles. The Crown competition results in a list of finalists (usually in December); the Gold (Top 2%) and Silver (next 3%) Crowns are named at the spring CSPA and CMA conventions in March. If a school is a Crown finalist, they will be either a Silver or a Gold Crown winner. The Crown judging is holistic in approach and there is no feedback provided to the schools (that’s what the critiques are for). The Circle awards are also presented in conjunction with the March conventions. There are 66 different yearbook categories and each member publication gets 50 entries at no charge. The Circle awards provide an opportunity for individual recognition. The judges place the top three entries in each category and often honor additional students with certificates of merit. Circle entries must be prepared according to specific instructions and submitted by November 1, 2010; the forms are attached and are also available with instructions online at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cspa. Prices and deadlines are the same for middle school, high school, college and university yearbooks.

NSPA has separate pricing for middle school and high school publications. Level One memberships are $59 for middle school and $109 for high school publications and DO NOT include critiques. Level Two memberships (the ones with a critique) are $99 for middle schools and $189 for high schools. College yearbook staffs would join Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) instead; their tiered membership structure is based on undergraduate enrollment and they do critiques on request at the university level. Information is available at http://www.studentpress.org. The Pacemaker competition is similar to the Crowns in many ways. It is a whole-publication competition that does not provide feedback; the deadline will be in January 2011 for 2010 books. A list of Pacemaker finalists will be released (usually in February) prior to the spring convention and winners will be announced at the 2011 Spring National High School Journalism Convention in Anaheim in April. College Pacemakers are presented in the fall at the National College Media Convention (in Louisville in November this year for the 2009 yearbooks announced as finalists last month). Forms to enter the Pacemaker competition are sent to all member schools and available at the website beginning in November. If you submit a critique book, they will retain it in their offices and use that book for the competition if possible. They are pretty good about letting you know if they need a book to complete your entry. NSPA’s individual competitions are judged over the summer and awards are presented at the Fall National High School Journalism Convention (in Kansas City in November). The forms for the Design of the Year, Picture of the Year and Story of the Year contests are not posted yet; I will attach them when I resend this memo in May. The deadline is June 15 (not a postmarked deadline) and the contests are free to all NSPA member publications; each publication can submit one entry per category. The college contests are very similar. Individual awards will be presented in Louisville in November, entries are due June 7, 2010 (also not a postmarked deadline) and the contests are free to all ACP member publications; each publication can submit one entry per category.

Another venue for staff recognition is the Quill and Scroll Society. This honorary for high school journalists offers a number of opportunities for recognition. A charter for membership at a school costs $50 and is good for all publications forever. The form is available at http://www.uiowa.edu/~quill-sc/. If your schools are not sure whether they have a charter or not, the folks at Quill and Scroll will be glad to check for them. Membership requirements specify that individual student nominees be junior or senior class journalists who are in the top third of their class academically and working on official school publications. The adviser must recommend each potential member. If they do things traditionally, there’s a spring induction ceremony with candles and speeches… Some people sponsor chapters for the benefit of listing involvement on scholarship and admission applications, for access to the annual Yearbook Excellence contests or because they love that their students qualify for honor cords for graduation. The contest deadline is November 1 and the form online has not been updated yet.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Print is NOT dead!

Two great things online recently to motivate you to read, teach and do yearbook!

The Future of Publishing - created by DK (UK)

Home Libraries Provide Huge Educational Advantage
Will your child finish college? The answer may be as close as your bookshelves, or lack thereof.
By Tom Jacobs

Saturday, April 3, 2010

TECH – eDesign New Features and Tips

The school year is wrapping up, but the eDesign team is just getting started. Today’s eDesign release includes the following new features and updates:
Save It Forward: There have been some big changes in the process to move templates between books. In the template Library, the “save it forward” link is gone, replaced by an Export Items button. You now have the option of exporting selected templates forward to a future order (next year’s mainbook), or saving them into a different active order (the quick turn supplement, for example).
Submitted Spreads: Spreads that have been submitted to the plant can now be made secret, or the secret assignment removed, deadlines changed, or staff assignments changed.
2011 Books have been made available to eDesign customers with signed Printing Agreements.
Enhanced Work Flow: Book Setup, Portrait Flow, and Index Builder no longer lock the whole book, so the staff can keep working while you add colors, flow portraits, or check coverage via the index. Portrait Flow DOES need the actual flow pages to be available (unlocked), and will tell the adviser during Step 4 if they are not. Book Setup will not allow a font or color to be removed while pages are being edited.

Other Changes and Tips:
· The date stamp on the PDF is now the last page or spread save date.
· Is there a way to draw triangles in eDesign? Of course! Just switch to the polygon tool (it's under the rectangle tool). Instead of dragging to draw the shape, single click the page. A dialog box will pop up with options for a custom polygon. Adjust the number of sides down to three, and you will be creating triangles!

Friday, January 1, 2010

eDesign Tips and New Features

Here are a few more features and tips to make the most of your eDesign experience!

New Background Colors function: Today marks the release of the new eDesign background fill option. Select the background button from the toolbar on the left, and then use the color picker to change the background color for each page. This new background layer can’t be accidentally moved, and is perfectly cropped to pass a preflight check. We also expect to add background image capability in the future.

New Bleed Line and Glue Margin warnings: An alert will inform users when they place objects in the bleed margin without reaching the outside edge. This will help alleviate preflight check issues later. Also, a warning will inform users when they place objects in the glue margin on the title page or closing page. Neither of these will force the user to change their design, they are just friendly reminders that the pages may undergo plant changes. If the user doesn’t want to be warned about these, they have a “don’t show during this session” option that dismisses the dialog box until they next log in.

Show Image Info tip: Need to lookup the filename, keywords, or other important info for a picture that is already on the spread? During page design, select the image, then click the Object menu > Show Image Info feature to see the relevant information about the picture.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

eLearning opens with tutorials for online, desktop applications

You have told us the eDesign online videos are wonderful. Now imagine a resource center where you could find all the eDesign videos, as well as videos for online applications such as eShare, and desktop products such as the Herff Jones InDesign plug-ins.

Say "hello" to eLearning...the newest Herff Jones support resource. Herff Jones already provides you with the best technical and training support with built-in Help for its electronic products, an outstanding team of Technical Support Advisers, AskMe! live chat, and, of course, you. The eLearning Resource Center provides you with another venue of support.

eLearning is available to customers with a YBAccess username and password at yearbooks.biz > Resources > eLearning. This new resource page is a warehouse of all the existing online videos, as well as seven brand new tutorials:

- eShare: Administrator Instructions

- InDesign: HJ Flip Layout

- InDesign: HJ Image Catalog

- InDesign: HJ Image In: Quick Tour

- InDesign: HJ Image In: Benefits

- InDesign: HJ Image In: Detailed Instructions

- InDesign - HJ Layout Builder

And there are many more videos to come!

World Yearbook Matching InDesign Templates Available Online

InDesign schools that have longed to coordinate the design of their pages with the cover and last page of World Yearbook can now do so. Advisers can find the InDesign templates online at www.yearbooks.biz > Resources > Templates/Palettes (login) > 2010 World Yearbook Templates.

eDesign templates will be available in January.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Become a Fan

On September 2, Herff Jones was the first yearbook company to create a company Facebook Fan page and in one day we had more than 100 fans. Today, we have over 600.

“Friend us on Facebook”
*If you are on Facebook, invite your staff to Become a Fan (click on Suggest to Friends along the left side of the Fan page)
*The URL is easy – www.facebook.com/hjyearbook
*Add a “Become a Fan” line or the facebook URL to your email signature
*Post something to the Herff Jones Fan site – keep it fun and interesting. Do you have a cool ad campaign you are willing to share? Have a YouTube commercial to share? This is great promotion for you and your school!
*Encourage students to participate in the Discussion Boards – there are three started now. More to come…
*Have something that you think should be on Facebook but would rather it be posted in the name of Herff Jones Yearbooks rather than your name? Send it to us.

Monday, September 21, 2009

eShare for Everyone

Beginning immediately, you can enroll in eShare. This is available at no additional cost to all schools, regardless of size or program. Think about how many moms and dads with digital cameras are at school events. If you were a photo-submitting parent, wouldn’t buying the yearbook be a given?

Now all schools can:
*involve every parent on the PTA – parents can upload photos of classroom events the day they happen and the adviser can access them for placement in the yearbook
*create calling cards with the eShare access code on it – you can hand these calling cards to the professional photographer or any parent taking photos on campus
*involve the students by letting them selecting photos and help with writing captions
*advertise uploading photos on the school website using the web banner attached to this email


How to sign up for eShare:
1. If you have not already done so, ask your rep for an adviser account in YBAccess.
2. Email your Customer Service Adviser and let her know that you want to sign up for eShare.
3. Wait for an email.
4. Once the eShare site is activated, you will receive an email notification. You must log on to the Administrative site www.hjeshare.com/eShareAdmin with your YBAccess username and password. You must specify an “Up Date” and a “Down Date” in the Preferences tab to indicate when your school’s eShare site will be active to their school community. At this time, you should note your specific school code.
5. Use the school code to advertise eShare to the community. Use the eShare flier (under the files section of our Google group) or create calling cards using perforated Avery business cards to hand out at PTA meetings or in the front office. Link the web banner (also on the Google site) to the school’s website for easy access to the eShare site and you are ready to go!

TECH – New Fonts in eDesign

We are delighted to announce that all 2010 books now have access to the following font families:
AHJ Calgary
AHJ CartoGothic
AHJ Clearface
AHJ Colonel
AHJ Dingbats
AHJ English Serif
AHJ Ferrara
AHJ Fleurons
AHJ Imperial
AHJ Litho Antique Caps
AHJ News Gothic
AHJ University Oldstyle
AHJ Vendome
AHJ Verona

Including their Bold, Italic and other variations, this represents 90 new fonts, and a total of 378 fonts available in 2010!

Herff Jones eDesign leads the industry in fonts available online!

These fonts can be added to a 2010 book using the same process as the existing fonts: as an Adviser or Editor, click Book Setup > Fonts and select the checkbox next to the font you’d like to use in the book.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

JEA/NSPA Conference

The fall JEA/NSPA Conference will be held November 12-15, 2009, at the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC.

1:00-7:00 PM Exhibit Hall open
This is when most schools and advisers will arrive at the convention and register.

Friday, November 13

8:00 AM-5:00 PM Exhibit Hall open

There are sessions all day for advisers and students as well as write-off competitions later in the day.

Saturday, November 14

Sessions continue from 8:00 AM-3:00 PM with awards in the afternoon

Noon-2:20 PM Adviser Luncheon sponsored by Herff Jones. You may want to purchase a ticket to the luncheon to support your advisers and Herff Jones. You can order luncheon tickets on the JEA website as we get closer to the event.

7:00 PM-10:00 PM Herff Jones Adviser Appreciation Event at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse. Bobby Van's Steakhouse has been named Top Steakhouse in the Washington Magazine and best Porterhouse in DC in the Washingtonian. We will have a private area dedicated to Herff Jones.

For more information about the convention visit the JEA website at http://www.jea.org.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

TECH - eDesign Cropping Option Added

While the current cropping behavior in eDesign is designed to reduce accidentally moved frames, some users may still need the ability to alter the frame size after an image has been placed.
Effective today, eDesign will support using the Control/Command key to enable a new cropping mode. Hold the Control/Command key and double-click inside the image frame to enable the ability to move and alter the size of the frame with the photo in place. It is not necessary to hold the key once cropping mode has been entered.
See the video at this link for a quick demonstration: http://files.hjedesign.com/CroppingVideo.swf

TECH - eDesign v2.0 Features Released!

Today, significant new features are available in eDesign for customer use! These features are available in all eDesign orders, even for books that have already been started.

In addition to the features previously released, the following eDesign v2.0 features are released today:

* Single Page Submission: Schools can assign, edit and submit individual pages. Two users can work on different pages of a spread at the same time.

* Lock/Unlock Position: Lock the location of a particular frame on a template from the Control Panel.

* Searchable Help: Search the help by individual words, making it easier to find specific topics.

* New Ladder: Supports single page assignment, deadlines, etc., including:
o Improved “Jump to Page” feature.
o New “Show My Pages” filter function.
o A new “In Preflight” ladder step.
o Markers for overdue pages, and more.

* Page Edit Touchups:
o Image cropping now acts more like a direct select tool by keeping the frame in place while cropping.
o The folio can now be enabled/disabled for individual pages, rather than affecting the whole spread.
o A PDF can be generated for a single page, or a whole spread.
o Items can be rotated and deleted directly from the Library panel.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Herff Jones is honored

Two Indiana Organizations Top CIO 100 List
Inside INdiana Business (press release) - Indianapolis , IN , USA
Indiana University and Herff Jones Inc. have made CIO magazine's top 100 list for ... Herff Jones is honored for an online tool allowing students to build ...

Click this link for full article, then see second article down

Who Needs a Yearbook When There's Facebook?

U.S. News & World Report - Washington , DC , USA
The big issue is how yearbook staffs are grappling with a culture of immediacy and how ... at Herff Jones, one of the country's largest yearbook publishers. ...

Click here for the full article

Monday, March 2, 2009

HJ Special Consultants will be at the CSPA convention

A Note From Ann Akers - Education Specialist, Herff Jones Marketing
704.849.4498 • agakers@herffjones.com

We’re just a couple of weeks away and it’s time to firm up some more New York details. All three Special Consultants will be at the CSPA convention and will do the majority of their sessions on Friday (when there is no booth) so that we can handle more appointments for them. They would be happy to look at proof books, assess design ideas that your school has already started collecting, look at summer/fall books that are still underway or start to talk to next year’s staffers. They can help you set design and coverage goals, talk about how to avoid speedbumps or discuss font choices and strategies.

Appointments are on a first come, first served basis after you let Ann know who is interested/how many will be attending and whether they prefer Wed a.m./Wed. p.m./Thurs. a.m. or Thurs p.m. slots. In addition, we will be meeting with some advisers one afternoon in a focus group and if you have might like to participate, please let us know. We like to have a mix of experienced and relatively new advisers, so if you could provide your name, school name and email address, we will be happy to invite you once we have a concrete time from CSPA.

And, we’ll be hosting a meeting with some students as well. We are looking for current juniors who are VERY INTO YEARBOOK to come chat with us while we’re there as well. We’ll be looking for a mix of guys and girls from a variety of schools nationwide. The times for this event are TBD as well, but we hope to hear about this soon.

TECH – “What’s New” Icon in eDesign Help

Please look for the “What’s New” icon, prominently displayed on the front page of eDesign Help. This is a list of the latest eDesign enhancements, as well as existing features. Be sure to check back regularly, as we are constantly making enhancements.

Other eDesign updates and tips, based on Yearbook Representative and TSA feedback:

* Saving faculty portraits: some schools may not realize that they can save their faculty portraits for next year’s book by using the “Save it Forward” feature. Have them save their faculty spread(s) as a template, and then choose that template to “save it forward” to next year. The layout and images will be in their 2010 book!

* Pop-in boxes: the colored boxes on the GO! Design templates are non-printing elements in eDesign (just like InDesign). This has confused some schools that had placed images within them, and did not see the stroked line on their PDF proof. If the school is determined to print the pop-in boxes, copying and pasting-in-place the box will make it printable for them.

* Spot colors: eDesign does not allow the use of Spot Colors in art or photos. During page design, the user cannot select a spot color for the HJ Art. In the Library, any uploaded files that contain spot colors are automatically converted to CMYK.

For additional eDesign support, please contact your plant CSA.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Student Raises $$$ for Yearbooks for Homeless Students

Rebekah Jenkins, a student at Lee Middle School in Orlando, Fla., has raised $1,500 to buy yearbooks for her homeless classmates. Herff Jones prints the Lee Middle School yearbook and Jean Henry is the school's HJ Yearbook Representative.

For the complete article you may click on this direct link:
http://www.news4jax.com/news/18695443/detail.html

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Commemorate



This is the first year many students will remember ever seeing an Olympic Games and experiencing everything that surrounds a National Presidential Election. This year, students are experiencing the impact of the deepest economic crisis the United States has experienced since the Great Depression. This year is a year full of tremendous historical moments.
When your students look back at the school year that was 2008-2009, what will they remember?
Help them remember this momentous year by including HJ'sWorld Yearbook in your 2009 yearbook. This year, more than ever, World Yearbook is worth the investment you are making. Adding this 16-page full-color supplement, the value of a yearbook increases ten-fold because when a student looks at their school yearbook decades from now, they will remember how they fit into this monumental time in history. It will help them to reflect on how this year influenced them helped to shape the person they became.
All of the TeamYBNY members would like to help you include the World Yearbook supplement in your 2009 yearbook. In an effort to help make the supplement more affordable, we are reducing the cost from $3 per copy to $2.90 per copy.

To receive the discounted price, you must order by Friday, Jan. 23.

You can order any quantity; it does not need to equal the number of books you ordered.
The supplements will have a Kleenstick adhesive strip along the back page and will be shipped with your yearbook order. The Kleenstick option allows you to sell the World Yearbook supplement during distribution. It is your choice whether to include the supplement as a value-added item (no charge to the students) or to sell the supplements individually, with or without a price mark up.
Please contact your Yearbook Representative to take advantage of this offer or if you have any questions.