Rethink Yearbooks · Service overview

What First Draft is — and what it isn't

A complete, printable first draft of your yearbook, built for free, so your team can spend its hours on the one thing no algorithm can do.

Previously called “done-for-you.”

Every yearbook coordinator we've ever met is short on the same thing: time. Two jobs compete for it — collecting the photos, and designing the book. Only the first one truly requires you. First Draft takes the second as far as it can go without you.

Here's the deal. We take your ladder and your template choice and we build you a complete first draft of your book — for free — so that the hours you would have spent dragging photos into boxes go somewhere better. Namely: chasing down the parent who has the entire field trip on their phone. Reminding the third-grade team that nobody photographed the science fair. Getting more and better photos into the drive.

That's the whole point. The draft is not the finish line. It's the head start.

What it is

Complimentary
No add-on, no tier, no upsell. Every school gets the option to choose it.
Built from what you give us
Your ladder sets what pages exist and in what order. Your template choice sets the look. From there we apply standard layouts and let our algorithm pull the strongest photos for each event.
Yours to override
Drop a folder named favs inside any event folder and we'll use those photos instead of ours — for one event, for a dozen, for all of them.

Must happen before the photo seal date.
Shaped by your preferences
After the photo seal date we're available to meet with you and capture what a template can't tell us: how many photos you like on a page, whether you have a font preference, anything else that shapes the feel of the book.
Backed by Canva support
Once the draft is in your hands we're still here for “how do I do that?” — swapping a photo, moving a text box, adding a page. Ask us anytime.

What it is not

Not a custom design service
First Draft uses standard layouts. That constraint is exactly what lets us offer it to every school at no cost.

→ Prefer to DIY? Build it yourself in Canva, starting from one of our templates or any of Canva's thousands.
Not unlimited revisions by us
You get unlimited revisions. You just make them.

→ Change anything, as often as you like, in Canva after the draft lands.
Not a guarantee we picked the right photos
Our algorithm picks for quality, variety and coverage — sharp, well lit, spread across the class. What it can't pick for is meaning. It doesn't know the science fair was the year's big deal, or that the shot families will hunt for is the retiring teacher's last day.

→ Two levers, both before the seal date. favs sets which photos we use. Your ladder sets how much room an event gets.
Not our sign-off on your book
The book you approve for printing is your book. We can't be the last set of eyes on your school's yearbook, because we don't know which kid is missing or which name is misspelled. You do.

→ First Draft gives you something to review. It doesn't move the reviewing onto us.

The two dates that matter

Two gates shape your calendar: the photo seal date, and the day you approve for print. Almost every question we get comes down to which side of one of them you're standing on.

Before

This is your window to collect photos.

Upload photos. Build favs folders for any event where you want specific shots. Get your ladder settled. Anything you want the draft to reflect has to be in place now.

Photo seal date

After

The book is drafted and handed to you.

We build the draft, and then you take over. Edit freely in Canva. Bring us your how-to questions. Approve it for print when it's right.

Before

Make as many changes as you like.

Change photos, pages, or layouts in your Canva project. There is no limit and no deadline other than this one.

Approve for print

After

The book is queued for printing.

Personalized pages and covers are generated, and your dashboard shows the ETA — delivery within three weeks.

Why the name change

When it was called done-for-you, the name promised more than we could sustainably deliver. Some schools reasonably heard “unlimited revisions and any customization you want,” and that version of the service doesn't scale to a free offering.

Renaming it to First Draft is us being accurate. It is a first draft: a real, complete, printable book that saves your team days of work, handed to you at the point where your judgment starts mattering more than our automation.

So take the head start. Then go get more photos — that's the part only you can do.

Questions about First Draft? support@rethinkyearbooks.com