Overall Research

I have come to the end of my research and planning of my newspaer, I now have a clear understanding of what my target audiences want from a newspaper.

Using all my research from focus groups, questionnaires and general research in brief they target audience want less writing on the front cover containing images and headlines to attract them. On the inside page have a contents showing readers what’s inside and were they can fin it.

Research shown that the contents of the newspapers will include more stories appealing to my target audience, including their hobbies and interesting which is music, local events, celebrity gossip and sport.

My newspaper is will be distributed in school/college or any youth places (conextions.) Having the newspaper disturbed at college will allow the student easy access t pick up a copy. I have decided that my newspaper will be free as the target audience is students they have less money as they may not work due to studies or only have part time jobs.

I can now begin the construction of my local newspaper.

Focus Group

I held a focus group with my target audience to see what their views on my ideas were. I presented a variety of font styles, 4 different front cover and inside page layouts to see what appeals most.

The focus group said they preferred front cover layout 3 but said that having a lead at the bottom of the page will be too much text for the front cover to be target at students. As the layout was appealing looking busy with headlines and images.

With help from the focus group I decided to change the lead to be a display ad this will add more colour to the front cover.

I showed my focus group 3 contents layouts. The all said that layout 2 appealed most to them. They focus group then said that having a headline at the top of page makes the inside page look more like a front cover. To solve this I decided to take away the headline box and move all the other boxes up.

When showing the font styles to my focus group they all chose 'Berlin Sands FB Demi' as the masthead font. After discussing this font with the focus group I found that it was not as appealing. The font I used were from publisher the standard font package. I will have the Berlin Sand font is mind and look for more font on online or other package fonts.

I asked the focus group what colour scheme would work best for my newspaper. They all said they preferred the newspaper traditional most popular colours of red, blue, black and white. This colour scheme is seen in most newspaper (the echo, the mirror, the star). I feel that challenging the codes and conventions of the colour schemes and using different colours would make my newspaper stand out more attracting more readers.

The feedback from the focus group helped my change ideas make them more appealing and eye catching to my target audience.

Font Style

As I have not yet decided on a Title for my newspaper I have chosen a selection of fonts i could use. I have used the word Masthead to represent my newspaper title. I will present these to my focus group to see which font style appeals most.

I have been using the internet for some basic research into fonts and what is most popular used in current newspaper. This research gave me more of an idea of what fonts to use for my first two pages of my newspaper to make it look more appealing.

Internet research I found that the top fonts used in current newspapers are:

• Poynter Series
• Franklin Gothic
• Helvetica
• Utopia
• Times
• Nimrod
• Century Old Style
• Interstate
• Bureau Grotesque
• Miller.

Mock up Layouts

I have created mock up layouts I will present these to my focus group to see which layout they prefer. The most popular layout will be the layout i chose for my front cover.

I have also created mock up contents pages using local newspaper pages as examples.

Layouts of Current Newspapers - Inside Page

I have created the layouts for current local newspapers first page. I have created these using Publisher, this allowed my to use boxes/shapes as outlines. This will give me ideas for my own layout for the inside page.

Current Newspaper Layouts

I have created a current local newspaper layout for the front cover, this will help me come up with ideas for my own front cover layout.

I have created a the layout for current local newspaper content page. This will also give my ideas for my own layout for the contents.