Planning Construction

After holding a focus group I have gathered alot of information to help me when constructing my newspaper.
I have now decided what layout i will be using for my front cover and first page of my newspaper.
I will start planning the contents that i will be including in both pages of my newspaper and finding stories to write about that will be appealing to the target audience.

Research and Planning

From my research and planning I have gathered a lot of useful information that will help me when constructing my newspaper. From all of this I have found what styles and techniques are most popular when constructing newspapers and I have also found what topics, stories and layouts etc the target audience found most interesting and relevant to them from constructing and giving out questionnaires to students and from also holding a focus group.
The questionnaires and focus group have been very useful and helpful to me as I now know what my target audience would specifically like to see in newspapers to persuade them to read it and also what they wouldn't like to see in newspapers. I have found that the topics I need to include in my newspapers are sport, fashion, celebrity gossip, local news, music and items that are relevant to students. Hopefully by including these topics in my newspaper, it will persuade students to read it as they are the topics that they said they would like to see in local newspapers. I should also avoid including politics, world news, and irrelevant information in my newspaper as this will be unsuccessful to my target audience.
I have also found from my questionnaires that the majority of the students would prefer the newspaper to be free, so in order for my newspaper to make money I need to include relevant advertisements in Liverpool to attract the students.
When I have successfully constructed my newspaper it will be distributed in Colleges and Universities as they are the most popular locations for distribution voted by students from my questionnaires.

Focus Group

I have held a focus group to receive feedback on my target audiences' thoughts and opinions of what I have planned for my newspaper so far. I created a series of front page layouts and first page layouts for the audience to give me some feedback on what they think has worked best and what they like and think is interesting about them. I have also mentioned the top ten fonts that are used in newspapers to receive feedback on what they think would work best with the style and age range of my newspaper. Lastly, I will ask them what colours they think will look interesting and what they would like for the general colours in my newspaper. I have decided that I want to challenge the codes and conventions of colour in newspaper and instead of using red and blue I will change it slightly and use other successful bold colours that work well with each other and look interesting.

Here is some of the feedback I have received from discussing layouts, fonts and colours:

Layouts
Front Cover:
The majority of the people in the focus group commented that layout 3 for my front cover is original and interesting but it may be too risky as the masthead is down the left hand side of the page but they would like to see what the finished result would look like to see if it worked well or not.
They also stated that layout 1 and 4 are successful and would work well as the main story gets priority and takes up most of the page. They said that this would be really successful and get a lot of readers if the main story is interesting and relevant.
Lastly they commented on layout 4 and said that they are intrigued to see what the newspaper would look like with a full masthead taking up the whole top section of the front cover.
First Page:
All of the students in my focus group decided that layout 2 is the most successful page layout as it is set out in an organised fashion. The contents, contact information, lottery numbers and the weather taking up the top third of the page. The story and image linking to the story is in the centre of the page and across the bottom of the page is the advertisement. The people in the focus group said that this looks really successful as it is very organised and easy to navigate and spot where each section is on the page. They commented that it looks much more successful than other newspapers where their layout isn't set out in a specific way and everything is cluttered and is hard to navigate and find what you want to look at.

Fonts
I discussed the fonts I have researched and and the top 10 fonts used in newspapers. The feedback I received from the focus group was to not use any of these fonts as my masthead as they are much too simple and wouldn't make my newspaper stand out from the rest of the local newspapers. They stated that I should look at different websites to get more of an insight into more interesting, bold and original fonts for my masthead.
They all preferred the more modern, rounded fonts for my contents and headlines than the traditional fonts as the modern fonts relate more to the younger generation and will work well with the style and target audience of my newspaper.

Colours
After discussing with the students in the focus group that I want to challenge the codes and conventions of colour and I want my newspaper to be unique, they decided that that would be a really successful thing to do if the right colours are chosen as it would make the newspaper stand out from the rest of the local newspapers. I showed them the colour wheel as it shows a lot of different colours and shades of colours that could work well for my newspaper.
They discussed that they think that the bottom half of the colours on the colour wheel would be successful colours to use as they are not too masculine or feminine and are not biased towards a specific gender. They decided that purple, blue, green, red, and orange could be good colours to use but they would like to see the final fonts, stories and layouts to see what colours would work best with them.

Draft First Page Layout

I have created four different draft first page layouts for the final newspaper I am constructing. I have created four different layouts so I can put together a focus group of a few people from my target audience so that I can get an idea of what works best for their age range. I will also get feedback on their thoughts and opinions of what they prefer and think is most interesting and eye catching and also get feedback of what they think isn't as successful and hasn’t worked as well. I will use this feedback to create a newspaper that the target audience will be attracted to and want to read. I will do this by taking the audience feedback into account and edit my designs slightly, changing and improving sections that they didn’t think worked as well so that I create a successful newspaper for students.

Layouts i have designed:

Draft Front Cover Layouts

I have designed four different front cover layouts for the newspaper I am constructing. I have created four layouts so that I can see what layouts work best and what don't work as well. I am going to put together a focus group of people from my target audience so I can get feedback on their thoughts and opinions of what they think is most interesting and eye catching and what isn't as successful. I will use this feedback to edit and decide what layout I will use for my front cover of my newspaper.

Layouts I have designed:

Colour

I have been researching colours in newspapers on the internet and I have found that most newspapers use the colours red and black. I want to try and challenge the codes and conventions of colour in newspaper and try something different that will attract the readers by using different colours making my newspaper unique.

I have found a picture of a colour wheel on the internet that I can use to help me choose colours that will still be successful and eye catching without being too colourful, overpowering and unprofessional.





I will put together a focus group so I can decide what colours will be successful and popular for the target audience of my newspaper. I will also ask the audience questions about fonts and layouts so that I have a newspaper that is specifically relevant to students and teenagers.

Fonts

I have been searching through the Internet to research what type of fonts are most popular when constructing a newspaper so that I have more of an idea of what fonts to use for my own newspaper for it to look interesting and effective without it looking too similar to every other newspaper.

From my research I found that the top 10 fonts used in newspapers are:

Poynter Series

Times

Franklin Gothic

Century Old Style

Interstate

Nimrod

Miller

Utopia

Helvetica

Bureau Grotesque

I think that the more rounded and bold fonts would be most successful and interesting for my target audience as they are more modern and effective than the traditional fonts for a student newspaper. I will ask my target audience questions on what fonts they prefer and think is most interesting so that I can create a newspaper that is going to completely attract their attention to want to read it.

Email Reply

After sending my email to David Monk, the Deputy Editor of the Metro on the 7th October 2010, I received a reply the same day which included some really useful information. The answers that he gave to the questions I asked helped me to understand what's most important when choosing the right stories for the front page of the newspaper. I will use this information to help me create my first two pages of a newspaper for my coursework as successful as possible.

Here is the reply:

Hi Toni,

In short:

Who is your target audience and what do they like to see?

Our target readers are aged 18-44, live in cities and are fairly well-off. We expect them to want a digest of all the main news of the day plus some wacky stories, interesting pictures, celebrity gossip and international coverage – plus features, an entertainment section and sport, of course.

How do you decide what stories are newsworthy for your first two pages?

Our ‘first two pages’ would probably be defined as the front page and Page 5 in terms of important news. Page 2 is weather and index, Page 3 is wacky and often picture-led and Page 4 is a digest and often a political or financial story. In terms of our news judgment, we put the most interesting story on Page 1 and the second most interesting on Page 5. We decide them on what we think is most interesting to our audience – not necessarily the most important but the story they are most likely to want to pick up the paper and read. Every paper does the same, but papers have different readerships so the stories will be different.

How is the content of yours newspaper divided between topics, eg; sport, celebrity, real life stories, factual news and advertisements?

Adverts make up roughly half the paper. Sport takes up around eight pages a day, celebrity two pages – the rest is decided day by day.

Copy of the email

Contstructing an email

I constructed an email today to send to local newspapers that I have been analysing to get more of an idea of what I need to do to create a successful front page and first page of a newspaper. I put together 4 questions of what I think is most important when creating a newspaper. Here is the information I aksed in the email:

My name is Toni Lynn and I am currently studying A Level Media Studies at Roby sixth form college. For my coursework my task is to create the first two pages of a newspaper, therefore I have been analysing current local newpapers including yours to help me plan and create my product. It would be extremely helpful if you could answer a few questions to help me in planning and constructing my newspaper.

Who is your target audience?
What do your target audience like to see in your newspaper?
How is the content of your newspaper divided between topics eg. sport, news, celebrity gossip etc?
How do you decide which stories are newsworthy for your first two pages?

Thankyou for you time
Toni Lynn
tonilynn1993@hotmail.co.uk

I sent this email to the editors of the Metro called Kenny Campbell and David Monk. Hopefully I will get a reply that will help me in constructing the first two pages of my own newspaper and their answers will help me create content that will attract my target audience successfully.