A2 Advanced Portfolio

Evaluation 2

I took inspiration for my own mast head from other local newspapers. I noticed that they usually make the typeface for the name of the newspaper more obvious to its audience by using a bold typeface and a large font size. Whereas the name of the area that the newspaper is aimed it is smaller but usually placed above the name to show its significance. This is why I decided to call my newspaper Manchester Express, Manchester being the smaller font and Express, the name of the newspaper being the largest font on the page so it stands out. The newspaper I produced is a weekly local newspaper. It does not conform to the typical features of a broadsheet or a tabloid newspaper. This is because it is a local newspaper and its purpose is to deliver local news to its readers. The type of reader is not as specific as national newspapers such as the tabloid newspaper The Sun or the broadsheet newspaper The Daily Mail. This is because these different newspapers deliver the same news to the whole region but in different ways for the different types of readers. Here we can see that my newspaper is similar to the other local newspaper and not the regional newspaper examples. For example tabloid newspapers use images that take up the majority of the front page and on broadsheets there are large amounts of texts to images. on my local newspaper I have made sure to include texts and multiple images so the text does not over face the reader and the images are relevant to the articles and text. I have chosen the colour blue to be the main colour running throughout the newspaper. I chose this colour because it is a sophisticated colour and in this context, does not favour a specific gender. This is because the newspaper is aimed at both genders. Also I noticed that a lot of newspapers include competitions on their front page to attract more readers. I decided to advertise a luxury holiday because when doing my audience research I found that this was the most favourable prize to win. I used these images on my newspaper as I thought they fitted appropriately with the articles in the newspaper. It took a while to collect these images as I had to use different people in each picture. My article follows the typical conventions of a newspaper article. I used the technique of the 5 W’s. This is used in every newspaper article to give all the necessary information in the first paragraph of the story. I used this technique because it attracts the audience and engages their interest in the story from the very beginning of the article. Also the ‘continued page 2’ directs the reader to open the newspaper and carry on reading the article and other articles inside. The heading for the article is ‘Manchester born L.E.A’s shocking Superbowl stunt’. This is eye-catching to its local audience because the story is related to a locally born celebrity. It is also linked with the Superbowl which is of an international interest, therefore entices a large audience. My first ancillary task was to produce a newspaper billboard . I produced my newspaper billboard on Photoshop as I was able to manipulate images on there. The billboard’s purpose is to advertise the newspaper to its local audience. Therefore I had to portray what I was advertising in an appealing and obvious way. I featured a variety of different people on the advertisement to show that the newspaper is for all local people. Also the bold and large text is the name of the newspaper to make it clear to the audience what the product being advertised is. There is also a bright red star in the primary optical area which highlights the price of the newspaper. This is an attractive feature because it shows the newspaper is cheap. My second ancillary task was to produce a radio advertisement. I think my radio advertisement was successful because I portrayed the relevant information about the newspaper in 30 seconds. Although this was quite difficult to produce as there were not a lot of examples of newspaper radio advertisements to take inspiration from. The advertisement informs the target audience what content you can expect inside and this is effective because it gives a example of all the different content which is sure to attract a wide range of people. When looking at my audience feedback I revisited my audience and market which I did in the initial stages of production. This enabled me to see if I utilized this information and whether they thought my final product was successful. When looking back at my audience research I discovered that the majority of the people that completed the questionnaire preferred to read a newspaper like the daily mail. This newspaper is a British middle market tabloid newspaper. I adopted this kind of style for my own newspaper because I think it looks sophisticated although my newspaper isn't a true tabloid. Because it is a local newspaper it is a mixture of a broadsheet and a tabloid newspaper which is evident in the types of articles evident in the newspaper. For example my main cover story is like a main cover story on the front of a tabloid newspaper. Ann said that the main cover story would persuade her to buy the newspaper because of the fact that it was about a celebrity who was born in the local area of Manchester. Colin also said that the main cover story attracted him to the newspaper but because of the fact it was about the Superbowl he said this was a positive aspect because the Superbowl is an even what is viewed internationally and therefore would appeal to a wide audience. I asked Jack what usually attracts him to a newspaper and his response was the main cover story. However when seeing my newspaper he said that the main thing that would persuade him to but this newspaper was the competition prize. He said the image used for the competition prize is an attractive feature and this shows that images are as effective as the surrounding text. When looking at my second page the focus group agreed that the stories on my inside page were appropriate for the type of newspaper and audience the newspaper was aimed at. Colin said that the fact that the cover story continued on to the 2nd page made the newspaper look more professional as this is a feature of many newspapers. I used a mixture of local and national news stories on this page. They said that fact that I added national news, for example the article on car insurance, stories was good because when they read a local newspaper they also like to read about current and important national news so the newspaper. Overall my focus group said that the layout and overall aesthetic of the newspaper front page and inside page looked professional. This is because of the equally spaced columns and accurately placed text. However they said that the image to text ratio could have been more. They would have liked to see more images or larger images relating on the second page relating to the articles. This is so the amount of text does not over face the reader Considering my media product in all aspects, my radio ad, billboard and final piece, my focus group agreed that I had created a media product that successfully used the conventions of a real media product. The house style of my product was evident throughout, for example the red and yellow of the Manchester express emblem on the front page and the use of red and yellow on the billboard poster. They also said my radio ad was catchy and suited my final product. In the process of research and production of my product I used Adobe Photoshop, Audacity, Google, Microsoft excel & Publisher In conducting my research I used the search engine Google. On Google I was able to gather images of the different types of newspapers to analyse and take inspiration from for my own product. I also used Google to learn how to apply certain skills to my images on my newspaper in the program adobe photoshop. For example, I learned how to remove the background from an image. This was very helpful as I think Photoshop is quite a hard programme to use without having the knowledge to use the different features available. I used Photoshop to produce my newspaper as I thought this was the best software to use. I used it to create both my front page and my second page. This is because there are snap on guides I could use to accurately line up all my columns and images to make it look more professional. Also I thought Photoshop was the best programme to use as I was able to resize my images without them looking pixelated. I also used the eyedropper tool to use colours from images and other things and use them on the text to keep the uniformity of the housestyle of the newspaper looking professional. I produced my radio advertisement in audacity. I used a Marantz sound recorder to record my voice and uploaded this to audacity. From there I added sound clips from websites such as soundbible.com where I was able to find an appropriate backing track for my radio ad. Then I had to upload my audacity file on to sound cloud and embed the html code on to my blogger account so it was able to be played on my blogger page. I used Microsoft publisher to record my product and audience research. I chose to use this programme as I was able to place the image in the middle of the page and add my analysis around the image. I used the online blogging site ‘blogger’ to upload my work and show the progress of making my newspaper from the beginning stages. Here I included a work diary which i used to update the different stages of my newspaper research and production.