Your yearbook cover can set the tone of your entire yearbook. It establishes the theme and invites people to see what’s inside.
So let’s make sure that all of your hard work doesn’t get trimmed away and that all of the components of your cover – front, back, spine, and wrap – are as perfect as possible.
What you should first identify is the “safe zone” on your cover template. Just like your Pictavo pages, a Pictavo cover has a “safe zone” on both the front and back of your cover. This “safe zone” is within the green line frame. Keep all significant design elements that you don’t want to run the risk of being trimmed off within that zone (the full name of your school, or one half of someone’s face, for example).
The yellow border that outlines the green frame is the trim or wrap area. Any artwork contained in that area may be trimmed off of your soft cover, or wrapped around the inside of your hard cover.
If you’re producing a hard cover or soft perfect bound book, you may also be able to add “spine” text. The spine of a book is the edge of the cover that you see when your book is displayed on a bookshelf. The text on a yearbook’s spine usually contains the name of the school and the year.
The “safe zone” for spine text is contained between the two pink horizontal lines in the center of your cover template.
To add spine text to your book, you have to first create a text box somewhere on the cover and enter the one line of text that you would like include on the spine. To place the text box on the spine, first “spin” the text box clockwise. Then place that text box between the two pink lines in the center of your cover template. Adjust the font style, size, and text box location to your liking at this point. Be sure to keep your text within the green lines at the top and bottom of the spine text safe zone.
Traditionally, spine text runs top to bottom, facing the back. That is why you spin the text box clockwise. If you prefer to have your text run the opposite way, spin the text box counter clockwise. Of course, the design style is your choice.
Keeping all of your significant work within the safe zones as indicated above will assure that all of the art work that absolutely must appear on the cover, does appear.