Emma's A2 Media project

14.4.10

Ancillary Tasks !

Website Research

Berklee is another music website which is foundationed on a music based magazine. It has an upcoming veents page which tells veiwers the latest happenings including gigs, concerts etc and gives detail of what bands are playing where, when and how much it is to get it. Moreover I thought that was would be a ideal page for one of my hyperlinked website pages as it complies with the theme and subject matters.

I found KERRANG! to be a really good website to look up and research about since i researched their magazine when i was doing some magazine research. the links they use are very simple but adequate to who they perceive themselves to be, and the overall look and appearance of the website is very loud and out going which tells the viewer straight away that it is informal and gives off a relaxed and chilled out impression.

Whilst looking through the website, i came across a page named 'Bands' which i thought instantly that i could use as a title for one of my hyperlinked pages off of the home page. The main reason for this is the fact that because my newspaper specifies in music and local bands and artists, i thought that having a 'Bands' page would be a great idea to suit the newspaper's theme.

First and foremost I needed to decide what software to use to create my website on.
I could either use Microsoft Publisher or Dreamweaver.
As a result I decided to use Microsoft Publisher as it was more beneficial for me personally as it meant that I could work on my website from home as well as at college unlike Dreamweaver which I didn’t consist of having on my home computer.
I understood that this would be a risk that I was taking since all of the other fellow media students on my course was using Dreamweaver, and that my teacher would be unable to help me in creating my website.
However I decided to take the chance since I knew how to use the software and had a better knowledge of going about designing a website on Publisher rather than Dreamweaver.
First thing I did when I opened publisher was selected a New website page.
I then designed a template so I could begin on working to manufacture the website layout and content etc. I then chose red, blue and white to be the colour scheme for the website
as this was the colour scheme for my magazine name and logo design, and so I thought that it would therefore very fitting and flow nicely.
Once the template had been created, the first piece of work I set on was creating the hyperlinks. To do this, I created two new pages of which then linked them all up together so you can access each of them from any of the pages.
Following this I could then name and design them for my first page and second page off of the home page!

Now everything had been set up for the webpage with the templates, I now could set out to deciding what information I wanted on there, and thinking of what would be the best information to provide my targeted audience with.
After doing some website research I found that on music based websites there were a lot of ‘upcoming events’ pages and a lot to do with current most wanted bands. So taking this into account alongside other factors I decided to name my two hyperlinked pages ‘Bands’ and ‘Upcoming Events’

The Website

The Poster

Designing the poster was the last task that I carried out.
The first thing I did was design a layout, which I decided that i wanted to try and make as simple as possible but loud and informative all at the same time.

However

Before i did anything, i researched posters and leaflets in my local area for example in and around my college, and since where i live is situated in quite a publicised area, full of entertainment and things to do, it was extremely easy to pick up posters of which were advertising all kinds of differemt subjects. From Gigs and Concert showings to Fast food and Holidays abroad! These are just three of the many i found.

My Research

Poster 1

I found this poster in a stack, outside a local music shop. The appearance is very simple and attention-grabbing. The MAMMA MIA! headline has been created using a TIMES NEW ROMAN type face and the divergent colours used attracts people's attention staright away, which is how i saw it in the first place.

Poster 2

This was a two sided poster i picked up from my local theatre, the cliffs pavilion.

( here is the link to there website ) http://www.thecliffspavilion.co.uk/
The first side is plain and simple, containing their logo and a sponsered theatre at the top and a big colourful illustration to what looks like the arms and hands of two men, either wrestling or shaking hands, which could represent the drama of the plays in the theatre and gives the poster its edge and identity.

Then underneath a contacting brief of their number and website.

The colours used are constrasting navy blue/black and white which makes it eye catching and appealing to people.
This contrsting colour effect follows through onto the back page, advertising their latest play
'SNOW WHITE on ICE'
The difference of this page is that it is alot more informative, giving info about the play including the dates and times of showings, who is staring in it etc...
Poster 3

This 'Healthy living' poster advertising all sorts of products was posted through my letter box, i think it much more informative than the others. It has lots of pictures and text on it, and looks like it is aimed to encourage people to live healthier and more efficiently. The chosen bold red text brings out the character of the poster and i think is the biggest influence in attracting their audiences attention.

The layout used is similar to that of a front page of a newspaper, with the name formatted at the top, a main story in the middle and other information underneath, which may promote people to want to investigate further into the advertisement.

From researching different sorts of posters and leaflets gave me the knowledge to design and develop my own poster! and this is what I came up with...

Layout Design

Editing

Then i went about creating the real thing! Combining pictures with text, creating adverts for my website and building it to look as eye catching as possible, as I knew that if it was a real newspaper, grabbing my audience’s attention would be very important necessity in order for the newspaper to be successful.

-And after a bit of treaking here and there i finalised my poster to a saticfactory leval that in my view ticked all of the aims above!

Finished poster!

12.4.10

Steps in creating my Newspaper !

►Step One – Create the Pages!

The very first step I took in building my newspaper was to create pages to set up and design my initial ideas of the layout I thought my newspaper should look like.

Designed Layouts

The reason behind having five pages was so that I could draft different ideas and dummy's for the design of the paper’s layout, for which I then were able to mix and match and attain bits and pieces from each of them to producing my final Newspaper page layout.

►Step Two – The Name!

After I had constructed my newspaper layout, I could then transfer my decided newspaper name which I had created via Photoshop over to Indesign by simply using the following route:

File – Place – Picture from File

Of which I could then locate the file from my saved folder and place it where about on the page I wanted it to go!

►Step Three – Adverts!

I then went on the subject of creating suitable adverts that would be of interest to 16-22 year olds as this was my targeted age group.
As a considerable amount of my age group would be students, I thought it would be a good idea to contemplate producing adverts on the subject of saving money, competitions and discounts.

Secondly because my newspaper was themed on music, I decided to create my adverts on the foundation of money (saving or winning) and music based.

From this I created my advertisements on Photoshop, some being real and some being fake but realistic, of which I then used the same method of the name to insert onto my newspaper in Indesign.

Ad 1

SAKS Underground - Southend

Ad 2

Prize Competition

Ad 3

HMV Discounts

Ad 4)

Newspaper Banner/Advert

► Step Four – Articles!

The next step I took in completing my newspaper was writing the articles to sustain the content. To do this I looked at my researched newspapers to decide on how I should format the size and style of the font.
I then worked my way around different newspaper/magazine headline and sub headlines, looking at how they are worded and phrased.

Examples:

The telegraph

'Fatigue faulted in bulk carrier accident probe'

METRO

'Pregnant woman to have 12 children'

'UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK'

'SPUN TO DEATH'

News of the world

'PHELPS GOES BONG'

From these headlines I noticed that there was a trend of big, formal and bold fonts being used for the size and style of the headlines and moreover from this I decided to use these basics as the font for my newspaper.

The next step I took in forming my main article and side article was choosing what they would be focused about, and what I thought would be the most suited for my newspaper in the Interests of my potential readers.
I knew that they should be surrounded around music based topics such as, upcoming Gigs, latest music news, festivals, and promoted bands of the newspaper, so as a result I decided to focus my main article on an unexposed band that the newspaper theoretically would have recently discovered. I created a picture, using four of my friends as the band and edited it in photoshop from which i then used as the largest illustration on the front page.

As far as the text was concerned I wrote a captivating introduction on the front page, since I had seen when researching newspapers that this was what most do as a good way to intrigue readers to want to read more and look into the newspaper to find rest of the article.

For my Second article I focused on a subject that would relate to something that everyone could sympathise with, which was about a cancelation of a concert due to the snow, which was relevent because that was the forcasted weather. The headline i used was ' Snow Creates Cries After Canceling Crazed For Concert'

► Step Five – The Font!

Throughout producing my newspaper, I tried out various different types of font styles and sizes to which I thought would suit the paper best, making sure it fitted and complimented the theme of the newspaper, and also being aware of keeping to the appropriate norms of newspaper font sizes in particular for the different areas of the paper. For example the font size of the name would be bigger than the font size of the text.

Font Styles

I tried these font styles out;

Rockwell
Impact
Comic Sans MS
Tunga
And Bradley Hand

And I came to the conclusion that Impact would be the best matched font to use for the reason that it is modern, eye grabbing and in my opinion flatters the newspapers theme of music nicely, bringing a sense of power to the feel of the paper and moreover giving the impression that what has been written in the articles have a bigger significance to readers.

► Step Six – The Colours!

Last but certainly not least, my final step in creating my newspaper was choosing the colour scheme. Since this is very important in the appearance of the paper, and attracting potential readers, I was very careful when deciding on the colours I should use.
I wanted to be creative and unique from other newspapers, however I knew that the set of colours should go well together and thus I was quite experimental.
After trying out several different colour schemes I decided upon a scheme of eye striking - Red, white, blue and dark purple as I thought that these complimented each other extremely nicely as well as giving a pleasant contrast.
Furthermore whilst conducting a questionnaire the most popular colours wanted in a newspaper were red and blue.

My completed and finalised Newspaper;

11.4.10

Magazine Research!

To be able to get the best picture about what to include in my newspaper spreadsheet i need to know about not only newspaper content but also about magazine content, and since my newspaper is based at teenagers/young adults, i think that it should comprise a more relaxed, laidback and informal characteristics to it, alike most magazines.

To this, these are just some examples of the magazines that i have researched in making sure that my newspaper obliges to having these features.

Star Magazine

Abit about the mag
Star's target market is teenage girls and women in general. looking as the appearance i would think Star would be classed as an informal magazine. The colours used are bright and loud and the pictures are big and is very informal in how it is written.

Star's selling price is 90p per issue, which is at the higher end of the scale of the market between its competitors which include More magazine along with New, Heat , Gratzia and The Enquirer. There main focus is celebrity's and fashion and their target audience is teenage girls and women.

More Magazine

Abit about the mag

Their Target Market : Teenage girls and young women

Their Priced at : 80p

Their Colour scheme: Blue and white

They Focus on : Fashion, celeb, gossip

Karrang! Magazine

Abit about the mag

Their Target Market : Teenagers, Music lovers

Their Priced at : £2.20

Their Colour scheme: Red,white and black

They Focus on : Music, Rock bands and news

Abit about the mag

Their Target Market : Teenage girls and women, fashion lovers

Their Priced at : £3.20

Their Colour scheme: Pink and white

They Focus on : Fashion and Gossip

Take a Break

Abit about the mag
Their Target Market : Women

Their Priced at : 70p

Their Colour scheme: Red,white and purple
They Focus on : Real life, Soap gossip, General

From researching magazines i have been able to acknowledge and understand the different target markets there are within the magazine and newspaper industry and also know more about how many different colour schemes there are, and furthermore i have gained knowledge in being able to see the diferent price ranges and diverse subject areas which will help me to fit my newspaper to a suitable price with my chosen market and my chosen subject area.