ANCILARY LAYOUTS

This week I have been making different layouts that I may consider using for my newspaper poster. After this I decided to do a questionnaire asking my target audience (40 people) which ones they would prefer for me to use and why?  I then place the results into a graph as shown below using Microsoft excel. This meant rather than having 40 pages of people's opinions i could just have one which informed me about my audience's choices.

This is my first layout, which has the nameplate of the newspaper at the top, the headline and then the slogan which is to tell the audience/ readers why they should buy the paper or when it comes out. The 12 people that liked this layout said it was because it followed generic versions of normal newspapers and so would attract them more.The rest of the 28 people that didn't like it, said it was because it followed normal conventions and they wouldn't want to read it because they would think it was a any other newspaper advert and wouldn't be interested.

    

  For the second layout, which has the nameplate at the bottom of the newspaper, with a large picture which dominates the whole page, and the headline of the newspaper written on top of the picture. Only 10 people liked this layout, and this was because they felt the idea of having a big picture dominating the page would attract them to the poster, as they feel less writing on a poster is more eye catching and balances out the page. For the other 30 people that didn't like this layout they felt that the layout was good but the position of my nameplate meant that it would be advertising the article and would not draw the readers attention to the nameplate. Meaning if they were to see the newspaper in the shop they will not recognise it and would no think it was the poster for that newspaper. Along with this they felt although it is good to have a big picture as most people are drawn by pictures than text, they felt the image over took the text (headline) thus putting less emphasis on the headline, and they felt this was not effective.

 

The third layout was the most preferred.  For the 18 people that liked this, their reason was due to the fact that they felt it had many components which encourage many people to have a look at the poster. They liked the fact that the picture was placed at one side and the text at the other, as it gave the poster a balance and made the poster look organised and made it easier to read and drew the readers attention. They liked the fact that the nameplate was at the top of the newspaper which meant that it would be the first to see thus promoting the newspaper, meaning there will be a cohesive link between the poster and the newspaper. The headline was on gang wars and the image was of a boy who was posing and had their gang sign up.They felt this was effective as it connoted well with the newspaper. They also liked the fact that it had the slogan at the bottom as not only did it encouraged them on where to buy it, but when it is published. However they felt the slogan should be "your weekly copy, out Now" that way the audience will know when it comes out and how often.

After receiving my results I decided to begin making my poster. putting the feedback I have received from my target audience into consideration.

Research of my ancilary project

This week I  will be researching on my ancillary project which is to create a newspaper poster. Throughout my research I decided to look at both national and local newspapers because in terms of layout they follow similar conventions. When i conducted my research, I found out quite a lot about newspaper posters. Firstly most of them have a very simplistic layout with just the nameplate and headline being advertised on the page. A strong headline which uses either a pun or alliteration or even a rhyme are sometimes used to capture the audience attention much easily. The serif font size used is very big which draws the readers attention and lures them into finding out more thus buying/ reading the newspaper. When conducting my research, I found it quite hard to get hold f local newspapers and this could be because most newspapers are quite confident that their audience will purchase the newspaper immediately when it is published.

Below are two examples I came across  when doing my research.

This is a typical example of most newspaper posters which i got off the Internet using google (images). This is one from my local newspaper. As you can see there is a consistent colour scheme which flows through the poster which makes it more formal and links it well with the newspaper itself which uses both types of blue.  The nameplate is placed at the bottom of the newspaper. This puts more emphasis on the headline and shows that the editor feels that it is what will encourage the audience to purchase this issue of the paper. The colour of the font is black and it is placed on a plain white background which means it stands out more, this is emphasized by the font size which is large thus making the headline dominate the page, so this immediately grabs the audience attention. Although this poster is very simple it still manages to serve it's purpose which is to advertise the paper and persuade readers to purchase it. 

This is a very different newspaper poster. It has the title/ website of the newspaper at the top of the newspaper. Which means that it will be the first thing that the audience will establish. Despite the size of it, the position of the title/ web address draws the readers attention to it as they will recognize the paper. The image used correlates with the caption which is placed under the picture as it is an advertisement of people voicing their opinion and the image are microphones. So a pun is almost made within the advertisement. It is very colourful which enhances the aim of audience acknowledging the poster. It also uses persuasive words and synthetic personalisation "you" to directly address the audience and make them feel engaged. I really like this poster and I feel it works very well in advertising the newspaper. However, I found it quite different that it didn't directly address an article in the newspaper, and because of this I may consider not using it.

After My research, I did a moodboard of the different national and local newspaper posters, I found on the Internet using Microsoft word and then print screened it into Microsoft PowerPoint, and then cropped it, then saved it as a PNG file. 

THE ARTICLES

ARTICLE 1 – MAJOR HEADLINE

RIVAL GANG WARS ARE GOING DOWN THE HILL

THE ongoing feud between Croydon’s most frivolous gang members broke out yesterday at Beulah Hill. Affiliates from rival gangs “Beulah Squad” and “Croydon Murders” battled it out with life threatening weapons over who “owned” the street.  The brawl which ended the life of  three teenagers, left residents around the area traumatised and in need of intense security. A bystander who witnessed the incident described the scene as “manic” saying “yobs of today seriously don’t know   or understand the value of life”

16 year old Mark Thompson, a member of the Croydon Murders gang was just one of the victims found lying in a pool of blood by the Met police on Wednesday 13th October after receiving several stab wounds to his chest and lower back. Detective Sean Paul traced the incident to a phone call received from a resident of the area who complained about a gang of boys hanging around the neighbourhood. CCTV images showed a young man covered with a balaclava reaching over to his victim with a weapon which resembled a broken bottle. Police assume the victim could have been Mark. Two youths who cannot be named for legal reasons have been arrested over the stabbing.

Friends yesterday paid tribute at the scene laying flowers and teddy bears.

“Everyone knew Mark, he was a good hardworking young man, who respected himself and others” said one of his friends. “I guess he was at the wrong place at the wrong time” added another.Marks mother Ms Ledia Thompson, who was the last to hear of her son’s death spoke greatly of her lost and pleaded for youths to “face their books and flip the knives”. She reinforced the statement that “you don’t just gain respect you have to earn it”. The Croydon poll last year saw the rise in  gang wars shoot up to a shocking 68% from the standard 42% , making Mark the thirty seventh teenager killed this year. Croydon’s Mayor Councillor Avril Slipper explained her great concern at the Town Hall meeting Yesterday and urged parents to take responsibility. Ms Avril Slipper spoke firmly about more people being trained as fire arms to gallivant around the street to help tackle this ongoing problem.

Article 2
CROYDON’S CULTURAL DAY

Yesterday, over 2000 people dressed in their traditional attire came together at Croydon’s 20 feet park at Adair Close to represent their country. The annual event which allows different cultures and generation to merge together raised £4000.00 to promote the new charity campaign TAO (Together As One).  A source for Times Croydon said the day was enjoyable and educational.

Article 3

HOUSE PRICES ON THE RISE

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House prices will be increased by 6% this year according to the housing officers.  The boost which left home buyers devastated was due to the decrease in new buyers and low interest rates which left a hole in the sales profit of banks and estate agents. Despite the panic in which this change has caused, Lloyds TSB chief economist Eugene Donkor said “the change already will not affect those already on the property ladder”

Article 4

FAR FROM A FATHER FIGURE

A MAN has been held in custody after the corpse of his late wife was found under the bed in his family house at  Whitehorse Lane. The 42 year old woman was found with severe stab wounds  to her heart and lungs by the Met police at approximately 6pm yesterday, after neighbours complained to the council about the stench which had attracted pests into the building.

  Father of two Marcus Forest, 47 was allegedly seen by his neighbours hanging many red stained bed sheet covers unto the washing line late last night, after telling worried neighbours his wife had travelled back home to Ireland to visit a few relatives. His two children Dave and Dan both 14 reported their mother missing at their local police station after finding  the remaining parts of her passport in the recycling bin. The police was set to investigate the case and had printed out many “missing” pamphlets urging people with any information to get in contact with them. Paramedics who visited the scene yesterday pronounced the pregnant woman  dead. Her husband who answered “no comment” to every question, was arrested under suspicion of murder and was taken away by the police chanting  abuse at them. Neighbours said the family were very anti-social and complained of the many sleepless nights caused by the heated arguments coming from the house. The children expressed their disgust to their father, dubbing him as the worst role model a child can ever have and reported the abusive relationship they had with him. Detective Marcus Hennesy said serious action will be taken and further investigation will be going on. For more information on this story visit www.timescroydon.co.uk

Researching Articles

As my lead story will be the first article that my audience will see, as it is on the front page. I engaged in a lot of research before writing it because I wanted the reader to be interested in it and so will lure them into reading the rest of the pages in the paper. I decided to write about gang wars in areas  because the audience will be familiar with the area because they either live there or know about the area  thus making them want to read the newspaper to find out more about what is happening in the area. This was part if the reason why I cropped the "Beulah hill" picture so I can zoom into the street name and highlight the importance of the article. I read many articles about gang wars or even death, and analyse the different journalistic writings used to portray this in an imaginative way for the audience. I noticed adjectives were used a lot so readers can picture the incident, speeches from other people present when the incident occurred or professional people such as police, mayors, doctors where written and also detailed information such as where, when, who and how were answered. I read articles from both soft (Internet) and hard (newspapers) copies from national and  local newspapers to gain more information. This task enriched my analytical skills.

Below are some of the websites I went on, to analyse the way in which the articles were written.

MY MAJOR HEADLINE
 http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/4318641.Girl_admits_telling_Shakilus_murder_accused_of_cheating_girlfriend/

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2401634.ece

ihttp://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/4441627.Don_t_Say_Nothing_gang_in_disarray_after_top_names_jailed/

After reading these articles  I noticed adjectives were used a lot so readers can picture the incident, speeches from other people present when the incident occurred where written and also detailed information such as where, when , who and how  were mentioned. I read articles from both national and local newspapers because I wanted to  gain more information on how to engage my audience through my article and to have the ability to lure the audience to read the article in every line.

The creation of my Ancilary (poster)

This is my first try on the ancillary project. As you can see I followed generic conventions by having my logo/ nameplate on the poster to help the audience identify what newspaper it advertises. Along with this I used big bold easy to read font’s which are easy to read thus grabbing the audience attention. I decided to use the headline for my second article on my poster instead of the headline on my first page, because I felt thee headline was more engaging and eye catching due to the use of alliteration. I was pleased with this as this was my first go at it, however, I noticed that it didn’t have any information of when or where it will be sold. The layout was quite simplistic, although this was the normal conventions of newspaper posters; I felt I wanted to challenge it. So I will be doing more research and will be playing around with the software In design and Photoshop to see what I can come up with.

I had another go with my ancillary project, because I wasn’t pleased with the results of my first attempt as my final poster.  This time, I decided to play around with the layout of the poster itself. Through this, I decided to place my nameplate at the top rather than the bottom of the page because I felt my headline was not that strong on it’s own to grab the audience attention, and I felt by having the nameplate at the top it would attract the audience immediately as they would identify that this is their new local newspaper.  Secondly it is the first thing the readers will see and this is what I want because the newspaper is new and my main aim is to advertise the release of the newspaper.



This is my third attempt of my poster. I am really pleased with this as it challenges the generic conventions of normal newspaper posters. Throughout my research I noticed that pictures are not incorporated in the poster, this shows that the editor of the poster is confident that the nameplate and the headline will lure the readers to read the newspaper. I on the other hand wasn’t as confident because my newspaper is not recognized by many people as it is new. So I felt as my first poster it had to be different and stand out from other posters thus drawing the audience attention to it. The picture I used correlated with the headline and was different to the picture I used on my front page thus making it more diverse. I had a consistent colour scheme all through out to tie the front page, inside page together. I   used different font sizes because I felt not only did it fit with my layout and fill up the empty spaces but it draws the audience attention to it immediately. The image I used corresponded with my headline and was very effective. Looking at my second attempt of the poster, you can see that I adjusted the placement of my font, because I felt it did not work effectively with where I placed my picture. So, using the character formatting control I changed the font size to make it bigger and vertical scale, to scale the length I wanted the fonts helped fill up the gap and make it easier for my audience to see it from far. 

pictures

This is the original picture I wanted to use to go along with my other picture (Beulah Hill) for my major headline. I felt this picture corresponded well with my article and headline, because my article is about gang wars and my model is holding up a gang sign and is wearing the typical clothes that the media stereotypes teenage boys to wear. So I felt the whole mise en scene of this picture was very effective. The background of the image was quite similar to the “Beulah hill” image, this was one of the dilemma’s I faced in choosing what picture was suitable for my major headline. With this in mind, I decided to open the picture in Photoshop, and then using the lasso tool draw around my model in order for him to be extracted from the background. This meant that it will stand out when I place it on top of the “Beulah hill” picture.

This is a print screen of how it looked after I extracted it from the background; I was quite pleased with the results. I then placed it into indesign, to see how it looked on top of the Beulah hill picture. After trying this I noticed that it wasn’t effective and didn’t look professional, as it looked as though it was placed there by mistake and so with this dilemma I decided to change the picture. However I would like to use this picture for my ancillary project.

I substituted the previous picture for this one due to the difficulties I experienced with it. This picture is similar to the previous one in terms of the way the connotations it conjures up links well with my article. I really liked this picture and was confident that I will not have any problems with it.

I decided to crop the picture in photoshop using the crop tool because I wanted the main focus to be on my model and the way he is posed. To emphasise the link it had with my headline and article. I also felt this looked more professional and grabbed the reader’s attention especially with the strong eye contact my model holds with the readers. This effectively lures the reader into reading the newspaper.

This is how it looks on top of the “Beulah hill” picture.

This is a print screen of the picture I used to with a headline I incorporated in my teaser.  I liked this picture due to the bright colour present in it, due to the costume worn by my models. The pink and blue was the colour theme that ran through my newspaper so I was really happy with this. I decided to crop the picture using the crop tool because I wanted the main focus to be on the face of my models and the awards they held, which was what my headline was about.

I decided to extract my models from the background using the lasso tool because I felt it looked better on a plain white background and stood out more. Along with this, I felt the brown background added an extra colour to my newspaper and I wanted to have a colour scheme run through my newspaper. As you can see, I also feathered it to make the edges les sharp. I am really happy with this.

My Graph- Working on article pictures

This week I have used many media technologies to structure and put together my second page.  For my fourth article, I wanted to have a graph which correlated with my article on the rise in house prices.

I used Excel to create a chart to correspond with my article about the rise in house prices in 2010.  I did this by entering the years and the rise number in columns A and B and then highlighted it and chose the chart I want. Then using the text box I gave a title to my graph to help the reader identify what it shows.

I then copied and pasted it into Microsoft office so I can crop it, and then saved it as a picture which I will be placing into Adobe Indesign. I felt having the graph made my newspaper look very professional and shows I have used facts and figures.