Monday, 28 November 2011

Ancillary 2 (TWO HYPERLINKED WEBPAGES) Research: Summary

  • Advertising bars at the top and side of the page.
  • The newspapers name/logo at the top of the page, accompanied with a navigational bar, and either a search box, or a login box for registered users of the site.
  • The middle section is split into columns; the left always has he latest news stories and the right has advertising, but if there is three columns then the middle is used as an archive.
  • There is some form of revolving news feature for the latest headlines.
  • At the bottom there is the copyright information and terms and conditions etc.
  • The second page follows the same layout as the home page, but the article takes up the left side of the page.

Ancillary 2 (TWO HYPERLINKED WEB PAGES) Research: Textual Analysis of local newspaper website 3



Use the arrows to navigate around the website.

What can I take from http://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/?
  • There is not a lot I can take from this website as there is not a lot on it. It acts as an online version of the newspaper, rather than a website.

Friday, 25 November 2011

Week Summary: Week Eight

This week I successfully completed the first ancillary. Now all I have left to do in the project is produce the second ancillary, which is two hyperlinked web pages from the local newspapers websites.

So far this week, I have done research into other local newspaper websites, which I have done in the form of 'Prezi' presentations. I have completed two of the presentations, and I have one more left to do, which I will complete over the weekend; by doing this, I will give me the remaining two weeks to finish the second ancillary.

Although, I only have allocated one more week for producing the second ancillary, I have a week at the end to finish of any little things that need doing. I can go into this week if I need to.

Ancillary 2 (TWO HYPERLINKED WEB PAGES) Research: Textual Analysis of local newspaper website 2



Use the arrows to navigate around the presentation.

What can I take from http://www.basingstokeobserver.co.uk/?
  • It has a similar design layout to http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/, but is a lot simpler, making it easier for the audience to navigate and read.
  • There is advertising bars at the top and side of the page.
  • There is a login feature for registered users, rather than a search box.
  • The newspaper's name/logo is at the top of the page, with a navigational bar.
  • There is also a constantly updating news feed and revolving box for the top stories.
  • The middle section of the page is split in two; the left section contains an archive of stories, and the right is adverising and contact details.
  • Then at the bottom of the page is the terms and conditions, copyright etc.
  • The second page is the same layout, except the left column contains the article and commenting space.

Thursday, 24 November 2011

Ancillary 2 (TWO HYPERLINKED WEB PAGES) Research: Textual Analysis of local newspaper website 1



Use the arrows to navigate around the presentation.

What can I take from http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/?
  • It has advertising banners at the top, on the side and at the very bottom of the page.
  • At the top of the page there is the newspapers name, a search box and a navigational bar.
  • The middle section of the page is split into columns; the left in for latest news stories, the middle is an archive for previous news stories, and the right is for advertising.
  • At the bottom of the page is copyright information, terms and conditions etc.
  • The second page follows the same layout, except that the left column is used for the article and commenting space.

ANCILLARY 1 FINAL (POSTER)

Here is my final ancillary 1 (poster).

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Production Update 2

Today I got feedback for my poster, but there was no criticisms to come back, so I have chosen to leave it as it is.

Monday, 21 November 2011

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Production Update 1

Today I started and finished the first ancillary. This was relatively easy as I had done plenty of research into what needs to go into the poster.

The poster itself was also very simple to make, as it mainly comprises of just texts, with a few graphic elements. I finished the poster today, but in the next lesson I will look to get feedback on the poster, and tweak any little things that need changing, before moving onto the second of the ancillary tasks.

Friday, 18 November 2011

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Research: Local Newspaper Poster Summary

Here is what I found from my textual analysis' of local newspaper posters:
  • In all of the the posters i researched, the headline took up the majority of the poster.
  • Most did not have a related photo on the poster.
  • The majority were printed in grey scale.
  • Some had the newspaper's website on.
  • Some had the details on that were on the newspaper (e.g. date/ price...etc.).

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Research: Textual Analysis of Local Newspaper Poster 3


Use the arrows to navigate around the presentation.

What can I take from the local newspaper poster 3?
  • The newspapers name is at the top of the poster, instead of the bottom.
  • The name is in red, unlike the others, in which the poster is printed in grey scale.
  • The headline takes up the majority of the poster.
  • There is no related photo with it.

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Research: Textual Analysis of Local Newspaper Poster 2


Use the arrows to navigate around the presentation.

What can I take from poster 2?
  • It is printed in grey scale.
  • It has no photo relating to the headline.
  • The headline takes up the majority of the poster 
  • The newspapers name and website is at the bottom of the poster

Week Summary: Week Seven

This week I have successfully completed the main task of the project and has now been upload, I am now starting to work on the first ancillary task; this is produce a poster for my newspaper. I will first do research into other posters for local newspapers then produce it.

I am currently behind schedule, but I am catching up, I am currently a week to two weeks behind schedule, I have till the end of week nine allocated to complete the ancillary tasks.

Ancillary 1 (POSTER) Research: Textual Analysis of Local Newspaper Poster 1


Use the arrows to navigate around the presentation.


What can I take from poster 1?
  • This poster uses a photo relating to the headline.
  • The headline isthe main focus point of the poster.
  • The poster is printed in greyscale.
  • At the bottom of the page is the newspapers name and website.

FINAL MAIN TASK: first two pages of local newspaper








Thursday, 17 November 2011

Production Update 14























I also managed to also get some feedback from someone who teaches classes and magazine and newspaper design. He looked at my work and found nothing wrong with my first page, but on the second page, he thought that the article text looks to squashed. He recommended that two columns would be better than having three. I took this and Incorporated this into my work. Also, I had another look over other local newspapers and realised that the style of paragraphing was actually different, and would give the text more of a flow for the reader, so I took this and decided to incorporate this for the whole local newspaper.


Production Update 13

The final issue that was raised with the feedback was that the headlines on the inside page did not make full use of the space allocated for them, I tried numerous things to fix this such as changing the space between the letters and changing the headlines themselves. In the end I found the solution by changing the headline.


Production Update 12

As mentioned in a previous post on feedback, I had switched the adverts on my front page to add colour, however, I felt that the advert that I had removed was one of the best I had made and I wanted to keep it by putting it on the inside page. The only issue I had with this was if it would make the inside page too white. I made two copies, which I got feedback on, and found that the one with the advert from the front page was preferred, so I have changed this.



Monday, 14 November 2011

Production Update 11

The next piece of feedback was that it was too white, the front colour didn't have enough colour. I put this down to the two adverts at the bottom of the page as the both lack a lot of colour. To improve this, I swapped one of the adverts with another that I had scrapped previously, I felt this definitely added colour and improved the page.

Production Update 10

I felt that there was too much of an empty space between the text and the advertising, when I asked for feedback, this was confirmed, but I didn't feel that a context would help the overall front page. I looked through my research and found that other newspapers used promotional text, so I decided to add this.

Production Update 9

In todays lesson, I had finished putting all of the pieces into the local newspaper, now it just needs tweeking from feedback.

 

Friday, 11 November 2011

Week Summary: Week six

This week I have been working on putting the pieces I had created previously - such as the adverts and articles - in the basic template, that I completed at the beginning of the week.

So far I have not started working on the ancillaries because I have not had time, and have been focusing on getting the actual newspaper completed and out of the way.

The newspaper is very close to completion, and will be finished by the end of week seven. Although I am currently of schedule, I am confident that the project will be completed on time, as, when producing my schedule, I took into account that certain sections could take longer than anticipated.

 

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Production Update 8

After completing the basic template for my local newspaper, I began to put the pieces I have already created into the template, such as the article, however, I did not expect that I would have to tweak the visual aspects of the article so much, so unfortunately I have not managed to finish it as I had expected. But I still have one more day of lesson time left this week, in which I hope I will be able to finish the local newspaper.

Inside Page Basic Template

Here is the basic template for my inside page:

Front Page Basic Template

Here is the basic template for my inside page:

Monday, 7 November 2011

Production Update 7

I have now started to put the local newspaper together using 'adobe indesign cs5'. This software working similar to adobe photoshop, which I have been using to create pieces such as the adverts.


Because the software is similar to something that I am familiar with, it has been fairly easy to get on the task. In this lesson slot, I have managed to put together a basic template for both pages of my local newspaper.


From this I will go on to put the pieces I have already created in the basic template, which I expect will be completed by the end of this week (week six).

Friday, 4 November 2011

Week Summary: Week Five

I spent this week creating draft designs for my local newspaper. This is as far as I got, which, unfortunately, has put me a week behind schedule. I had planned to have the local newspaper finished by the end of this week, but as I did not account for the drafting stage, I actually have not started creating it.

I plan to do this next week, as I can do the ancillary tasks outside of lesson time because the is no issues with using the software outside of lessons; however, there is issues with using the software needed to put the local newspaper together outside of lesson time, which is why I have decided to allocate my lesson time this way.

Thursday, 3 November 2011

Inside Page Draft 1

Similar to the front cover designs, I have used the style models (Basingstoke Observer, Oxford Journal) closely.

One piece I decided not to use from the style models is the small newspaper name in the top left corner of the newspaper. I didn't see much point in having this on my inside page and felt it was better not to add it to the design.

When creating designing where the articles would go on the inside page, I decided only to add a captioned photograph to the top article, this is because it is similar to the style model, also, the top article will be more important; by only adding a photograph to the top article, it makes it stand out on the page more.

I have chosen to go with this draft for my design for my local newspaper.

Front Cover Draft 4

I had a similar problem to the previous draft (draft 3) that it felt strange not having a gap between the article and the adverting - where I had moved the the context to the top of the page - something needed to be put there but I couldn't think of anything to go there.

Many newspapers often have a promotional advert of some form for the weekend edition of their newspaper. I decided to add one of these as it fitted the gap nicely.

I have decided that this is the design I am going to use for my local newspaper design, I will begin creating this in the next lesson.

Front Cover Draft 3

This draft is very similar to my last (draft 2), however, I thought it didn't look right having the article headline right below the newspaper headline. I decided to move the context to the top of the page, below the newspaper name, to add a gap between the newspaper name and the article headline.

Front Cover Draft 2

In this draft, I have removed the visual context, However, at the top of the page where the newspaper's name is felt too empty, I didn't like the idea of having the newspaper name taking over the whole width of the front cover. I decided to put the essential information in this gap, this is normally a design used with magazines, but it has been used in other newspapers.

I liked the idea of having a context on the front page, so I looked at the style models again (Basingstoke Observer, Oxford Journal) and used the idea or having a small bar at the bottom of the page for a context, so I added this below the article.

Front Cover Draft 1


All of my drafts follow the same basic design, however, there are a few little things that have changed on each draft.

My draft designs were based on a combination of the Basingstoke Observer and Oxford Journal. This is because they fit the same audience that I am aiming my local newspaper at.

My first draft was very close to that of the Basingstoke Observer. However I was not happy with this design; I did not like the idea of the visual context at the top of the page. I took this into the next draft.

Production Update 6

I have now completed the drafts for the my local newspaper. I have done four draft designs of what it will look like, and I have now come up with my design, that I will begin creating in the next lesson.

Whilst going through the drafting stage of the design, I asked for feedback from peers at each stage of the drafting process, until I came up with a design that I was satisfied with. Here are my designs. I have gone with draft 4 for my local newspaper front page, and there is only one draft of the inside page, as I felt the first draft was what I was intending my newspaper to look like.

Here are my draft designs.