The staff of Palo Alto High School’s yearbook, Madrono, will change both the procedure and layout of senior portraits, according to yearbook adviser Margo Wixsom.

This year’s seniors must bring their yearbook portraits to Room 101 during seventh period by Oct. 30, either digitally on a CD or USB stick with 300 dpi (dots per inch) or a picture that can be scanned. The original date of Sept. 30 was moved back a month in order to give seniors more time to submit their photos, according to Wixsom.

This change in procedure resulted from noticeable deficiencies in last year’s process, in which seniors were allowed to e-mail their pictures to the yearbook staff, according to Wixsom. Wixsom said that 40 percent of last year’s senior class sent pictures that were unusable in terms of either size, resolution or format, and that the staff spent most of the year correcting senior portraits.

“Last year was a fiasco because people sent us pictures copied off of Facebook that had very low resolution.” Wixsom said. “It was a nightmare because we spent so much time tracking down seniors to get correct files.”

In addition, the size of the senior portraits will be cut in half from last year in order to save space and reduce the number of senior pages from 70 to around 26, according to Wixsom. This year’s senior pages will hold about 15 pictures each, as opposed to last year’s senior pages, which held eight pictures per page.

Senior write-ups have also been cut to a maximum of 40 words and will be included in a separate section from the portraits in an effort to eliminate unused space, according to Wixsom, who said that there will also be a section for seniors who wish to submit artwork or cartoons instead of writing. Both write-ups and artwork can be submitted to the yearbook staff by e-mail at [email protected].

“About 35 percent of seniors last year did not submit write-ups, which is a lot of wasted space,” Wixsom said. “We want to make the yearbook look more professional.”

Wixsom says she understands that seniors may be upset about changes to the layout of the senior pages, but thinks that the final product will be a success.

“We looked at the past yearbooks and one area of gross excess was the senior pages,” Wixsom said. “We are changing it [the senior section] because that was not equitable, not sustainable and not fair to the staff. But, we are still doing a custom senior section, which many other yearbooks don’t do.”

Both Wixsom and the Madrono staff believe that the 2009-2010 yearbook will be more successful than previous years because of the knowledge they gained from last year’s mistakes and the changes they have made to ease these problems.

“Last year we had to cram everything in and it took up a lot of time,” said junior Julia Wong, a returning yearbook staff member. “This year’s will turn out better because we have a lot more knowledge about the yearbook process.”

The Madrono staff is making efforts to include the entire Paly community in the decision-making process, and has created a Facebook group called “Eyes for Yearbook” that allows students to submit photos and ideas for yearbook. Wixsom hopes that students — especially seniors — will become more involved in yearbook this year.

“We want to promote this as a transition year from just the staff to the entire senior class that will step up and contribute,” Wixsom said. “We can’t do it [the yearbook] the way we envisioned it without people coming from around campus to help.”