Understanding Your Book Structure
Structure your pages into thematic sections in Memento’s book manager. Your sections can help guide your styling choices, your photo management and your workflow.
Video Overview: The Book Manager
Sections Versus Pages
A new yearbook project will start with nearly empty page ladder. The project will include a Cover section and an Intro section, each with a single blank page.
Organize your yearbook into thematic sections, then add pages into those sections. Organizing your yearbook pages into sections helps manage page styling, photo organization, and team member assignment in a more focused manner.
Sections may be opened and closed like drawers. View pages in smaller groupings to easily see progress and how those pages relate to each other from a design perspective. Learn more about section management.
Small yearbooks traditionally include standard sections such Intro Pages, Staff Pages, Student Portraits, Graduates, Sports, Clubs & Activities, and Autographs. Larger yearbooks may add more sections to group their pages together efficiently.
To help you decide what sections to include in your yearbook, download this handy PDF checklist. You can use your past yearbooks and your school calendar to help you decide what to sections to include in your yearbook, then add pages to each section to plan your yearbook early in the season, keeping your total page count in mind.
The Cover Section
The cover is the first section of your book. The cover appears as single blank page at the top of your book ladder.
Covers are designed across a single large page, as if the book was opened flat on a table.
Cover Dimensions & Margins
Your cover dimensions are automatically preset based on the book type and size assigned to your account as specified by your studio.
When opened in the editor, the cover page displays the back cover on the left side, the spine indicator in the middle, and the front cover on the right side.
Green lines indicate safe margins. Keep all featured images and text within these green margins to ensure it is not trimmed on your final printed page.
The spine area is displayed as one or two mid-page lines, depending on the spine width.
Hard cover books display a large red area around the entire page. This area wraps over the edge of the cover.
Soft cover books (Perfect bound, Saddle-stitch) display a thin red bleed area around the entire page. This area will be trimmed off after the page is printed.
For all cover types, background colors/textures must extend over entire bleed area to the outer edges of the page to ensure there are no white unprinted edges around your cover.
Designing Your Cover
Your front cover design should prominently feature your school name and the school year.
Feature images and text must be positioned well within the green safe margins on the front and back cover. Only elements that spill off the edge of the page should exceed the safe margins and bleed area.
Never leave a thin border around your feature images, either at the page edges or around the spine. Because paper can shift at the time of printing by up to 1/8″ inch, thin borders may be trimmed or appear irregular on your final book.
Background images/color/texture(s) and banners must extend to the outer edges of the page. If the background or banners do not extend to the outer edges of the page, your cover may display a thin white unprinted line on one or more edges due to paper shift during manufacturing.
Also, due to potential paper shifting, the spine area should be kept clear of feature images and text. Items placed too close to the spine may spill awkwardly into the spine area.
Cover Background Options
Memento Yearbook includes a collection of single page backgrounds under the Layouts tab in the editor. For additional cover background options, browse the extensive collection of images in the Studio Source Catalog.
All cover backgrounds in the Catalog are copyright-cleared and appropriately formatted (6000 x 3900 pixel jpg files) to fill the entire cover background. Learn how to use the Catalog in the Additional Resources & Tools article.
Spine Design
Only add text in the spine area for thick books.
Be sure to keep images and text on the front and back cover away from the spine margins so content doesn’t creep over the spine itself when the book is printed.
Spine text must be centered within the guidelines and not exceed 70% of the spine width, to accommodate for paper shifting during production.
For a foolproof solution, try adding a shape or a background texture to replicate the look of book binding tape. Extend this frame to the top & bottom edges of the page, and onto the front & back covers to pad out the spine area.
Using Student Art on Your Cover
If your yearbook features original hand-drawn student art on the cover, be sure to download the Custom Covers Guideline PDF to obtained detailed guidelines for running a student art cover contest. Be mindful of a few important details:
- Designs should go to the very edge of the pages, leaving no white border areas around the edges.
- Important design elements such as titles, text and feature images should be inset 3/4″ from the page edges.
- Watch out for spelling mistakes, especially your school’s name!
- Scan the completed designs to 300 dpi jpg files, ensuring the paper is as flat and wrinkle-free as possible.
- Try to remove any erasure marks or smudges before scanning the artwork. The cleaner the design, the better it will look.
Interior Pages
Single Pages Versus Double-Page Spreads
Adjoining pages are displayed with a left and right side together – this matched set is called a double-page spread.
When a double-page spread is divided into separate sections, you will see a “ghost” of the left-side page at the front of the section as a preview, to help you set styling choices.
Note that the first page in your book is always a right-side page with no matching left-side (indicated by “Printed blank” on your ladder).
In the editor, pages are displayed as a double-page spread. You may edit one side of the page at a time, using the ghosted page as a placement reference.
Interior Page Dimensions and Margins
Your interior page dimensions (length, width) are automatically preset based on the book type – usually trimmed to an 8.5×11″ finished size.
The editor displays pages surrounded by guidelines. These lines assist to place your images, shapes and text.
An edit button appears on the ghosted (inactive) page – simply click on it to work on this page. The current active page will be ghosted.
Green lines indicate the safe margins. Keep all featured images and text within these margins to ensure they are not trimmed on your final printed page.
A thin red line area around the entire page indicates the bleed area, which will be trimmed off after the page is printed.
Important: background colors/textures must extend over this area to the outer edges into the bleed area to ensure there are no white unprinted edges around your pages.
The line between the pages is called the gutter.
Photos and text cannot be placed across the gutter to appear on both sides of the double spread.
Number of Pages
When your yearbook was set up, it was assigned a cover type and a maximum number of pages. The Editor-in-Chief of your yearbook project should consult with your studio rep to know the exact number of pages as specified in your yearbook contract as it may be less that the maximum allowed in your assigned book product.