Thursday 30 December 2010

I've now started to put the finishing touches on the front cover, I realised I was missing an advert on my front page which from my research I found that every newspaper I looked at included in advert so this had to be done, luckily I had a gap at the bottom that needed filling. I decided to insert a box and fill the colour in red, mainly because it goes with the ethos and housestyle of my magazine and the restaurant uses that colour too which was good although i understand in the future there is going to be lots of different adverts in that place that can't also keep up with the same colours and text etc. The only thing missing from this advert is a picture and seeing as it's a real place I'll be taking a picture and adding it to the advert.

 In order to make the newspaper look more newspaper like instead of magazine like where lots is happening i've decided to put spaces between the pictures and alot small lines which was easily done on indesign. I also had to make a decision about where the 'win a £500 westfield giftcard' should go. To help me make this decision I printed off copies of both versions of the front page and showed them to people and asked for there opinion, i made sure i asked people of all ages in order to avoid asking lots of similiar people all with similar tastes. Most people agreed that the first version on the left was infact the better design.
I've now started adding pictures more pictures to go along with the articles. From my pre-production research it showed me the basic structure of local newspapers and how they usually include adverts and competitions on the front cover in order to lure the reader in. I've decided to add a competition that enables the reader to win a £500 gift card to spend at westfields shopping centre in london. The picture i've used along with it is one i took myself when i visited the shopping centre, i took the picture by using the panorama setting/effect to enable me to get a picture long enough and it also saved me from adjusted the photo if it had been taken on a normal setting. I've also added pictures along the right hand side and put headlines above to explain what the pictures mean and also so it helps the reader understand what it's all about. Indesign enabled me to add thick lines in between the pictures so that I could make it seem more seperated. The only problem about this is that it seems like there is too much going on due to there being no gaps between pictures and headlines.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

I've now started creating my masthead, i've decided instead of having straight text i've put a 10% slant on it. This makes the name of the newspaper stand out alot more compared to other papers that may be on the shelf. I've also added a slogan/tag line for the paper that is 'something for everyone' this implies to readers that anyone in the local communitiy can read it and it doesn't just apply to certain groups of people. I've also added an anchor as a logo which i made on photoshop, i've chosen to use an anchor because the newspaper is Portsmouth based and Portsmouth is known for its Naval background.

I've decided to change my headline from 'firework success' to 'party with a bang' and also move the headline so it's at the side of the image instead of the top. I've decided to do this because the headline was covering the top bit of the image with the firework which is the main attraction off the image so by changing the headline and the position of it it's enabled the main part of the image to still be seen.