Bristol Post New Style

Very recently one of the local newspapers for my regional area has had a revamp in its design and layout compared to what it formerly looked liked with it having a very different appearance. The new adopted appearance seems to be in a sort of magazine style with the front page consisting of many pictures without some of the articles that may start off on the front page. The reasoning behind this revamp seems to be due to a revaluation of its target audience with, its target audience looking to be changing to a younger female orientation. According to an editor of the newspaper they want the Bristol Post to give "trusted advice on what to do with their time and money" which is the sort of relationship which you would expect with a consumer and their magazine of choice emphasizing the change in approach. This focus means that the Bristol Post want to form a connection with its readership which want to keep purchasing the newspaper. The new design is supposed to promote positive news within the newspaper and for Bristol furthermore than it has done in the past which is a standard convention for a local newspaper to cover the positive stories more so that the national newspapers likely due to the readers view up on the area in which they live in.

Newspaper Logos/Title

Above is a picture to represent some of the logos/title that you get within the newspaper industry. I have given a mixture of local and national newspapers as examples that I will talk about. This backs up the research of my previous decision of using the Portishead logo with the font that I picked. All of the above use one of a few colours being either black, blue or red. This enforces my decision of deciding between the colours of red and blue as possible colours to use, with me picking a blue colour scheme in the end. Looking at the letter casing the majority of the titles have one capital letter to start then continue in lower case with only the ECHO in the suggestions given above in only upper case. From this I have decided to follow suit with the convention of starting off with an upper case letter at the start of the word followed by letters in the lower case which differs from the sketches of my front cover which are all in upper case which will be changed when I came to making the product. Only sometimes is there any imagery to compliment the title as sometimes just the title is just enough. Using the Liverpool echo as an example though shows that imagery is sometimes used with the Liverpool Liver bird being used as it is a symbol of the city therefore helping with the identity of the newspaper. This is the reason why I am going to use the symbol for Portishead to help form the identity of the newspaper.

Advertising within Newspaper - Planning

Advertising takes a big part within local newspaper pages. This is normally due to the fact that local newspapers don't get the same sort of financing the national press receive from paper purchases because of the size of the audience. This is especially prominent  within the few local newspapers as well as the Metro that distribute their newspapers to its audience for free with, the need even more so for alternative financing. Following on from this point advertising should have a noticeable part within my local newspaper which is why I will plan these out beforehand.
With my local newspaper that I will make I have decided to do local adverting of local businesses with the audience of the newspaper being similar to the people who might be interested in the advertising. Within the two pages that I will make for my local newspaper there will be one advert on each page both situated in a corner of the page so that it does not detract from the overall product however, it will take up a considerable part of the page and will be noticeable. The advertisements can not advertise a business that has already been made therefore meaning that I will have to create the advertisement from scratch. The two adverts that I plan on making will be on the following:

• Accounting business for small businesses
• Double Glazing

 The names for the businesses above will be Smith & Sons for the double glazing company with the name for the accountancy company being S J Accountancy. The inspiration for the names came from looking through other similar companies and trying to show a similar name to that area of work as well as there names showing that they a small companies likely based within the area which is the companies that are likely to place there advertisements within the newspaper. The accountancy advertisement will be based on a photograph image I will make while the double glazing will be a graphic that I will produce showing a simplistic representation. Below are some sketches of what the advertisement could look like:

Radio Advert

The radio advert that I will create to advertise my local newspaper will be mentioning  some of the features within the newspaper which will be both of my main articles within the newspaper which I will actually right up as well as mentioning the competition within the edition to win a prize a months supply of petrol. This will not only link back to the newspaper but will also link to the other add on to the main product of the newspaper. Another feature to the radio advert is that it will have a voice over from someone who lives in Portishead to replicate a similar accent to what you would hear around Portishead this would help represent the local theme of the subject therefore helping to show that it is a local newspaper.

'Portishead Post' Poster Draft

The first thing I thought about when producing the poster is that it should compliment the main product which is the newspaper because of this the feature on the newspaper is also involved with the front page of my newspaper as part of the 'ears' on the front page. This feature is on a prize with a chance to win a months worth of petrol to all participants who enter. Hopefully this will encourage new readers to buy the newspaper in order to have a chance to win the prize. Another way I have linked the poster to the newspaper is by its style and appearance. The poster will clearly show what newspaper it relates to with the same title and font accompanied with the image, which will be placed at the top of the poster. Below is a sketch of what the poster will look like:

'Portishead Post' Second page Draft

Above is a drawing of roughly how my second page for my newspaper will look. On this page there will feature one main article with a single minor article to accompany it to the side. The advert on this page will be placed within the bottom left corner of the page. The Crime article will dominate the majority of the page due to the size of the story and its importance because of this there will be a lot of text as well as two pictures based on the story on the page. The title of the main article is also shown at the top of the page. There will also a be a little head banner in which will show the page number of the page currently it is situated on.

'Portishead Post' Front page draft

The picture that I have attached to this post is a draft of the front page of my local newspaper called the 'Portishead Post':

From the picture you can discover many features such as layout and what will be involved on the front page. Starting with the title, this would be placed at the top left of the page which is a standard convention for a newspaper as it will be the first thing you see to help differentiate between papers. This will be accompanied with an image to represent the paper and the area which is why I selected the Portishead logo. To the right of the title is a competition for a 'months worth of petrol' which forms a part of the skybox/ears. This part of the front page will be linked with the poster. On the right will be a series of links to articles inside to gauge interest accompanied with a small image. At the bottom right is a piece of advertisement which will be mentioned about in more depth in another post. There will be one main picture on the front page working with a headline as well as part of an article along the bottom of the page. All of this will be in a blue colour scheme.

Pictures for the Newspaper

Criminal Article
Shots
Medium to full body shot of the criminal walking away trying to obscure his face as he walks away from the police station.
High angled shot looking down on a theft replicating a CCTV camera (this will be edited in future).

Locations
Outside Police HQ
Outside my house

Clothing/Props
Hoodie
Joggers

Hero Article
Shots
Full body shot of the injured standing with the person that helped him with their dog
A shot looking up where the accident took place

Location
The coast of Portishead

Clothing/Props
Casual/practical  clothing e.g. jeans, trainers, jumper
Dog with lead
Pair of crutches
Cast

Local Newspaper Articles

One of the two main articles that would feature within my local newspaper will be a negative and a positive article. Along with this there will be several minor articles that will be mentioned as being inside the newspaper. I have done this as the readers from my research expect a mixture of good and bad news within the newspapers they read. The negative article will be based on a criminal act within the community of someone who done repeated theft. The picture associated with this article will be of the criminal wearing a tracksuit with a bad looking hoodie, as well as not looking very attractive which is something I noticed during my research stage that the criminals featured don't look overly attractive therefore making you feel negatively upon them. I will also try to mess up their hair to achieve this. The location for this will likely be by the police headquarters in Portishead this is so I can get a shot with the criminal walking out of the headquarters with the head quarters in the background. I think this would be a suitable location as it is relevant to the article. To accompany this picture  I will produce a long shot of the criminal as though he was caught on CCTV. To do this I will take a long shot that I will gather from above so that it is like a CCTV shot and I will try to manipulate the image so it looks grainy as if it was a CCTV camera that took the image. This article will be featured on the front page of the newspaper.
The other main article that I will produce will be a positive article as I mentioned before and will be based upon a story about someone who saved someone's life after they had an accident on the coast of Portishead after they slipped and fell of a rock and broke a bone in their leg as well as having  multiple other minor injuries meanwhile the tide was quickly coming in. After the accident  they were found by a dog walker walking along the coast taking his dog for a walk and then found him and helped him out. For the picture which would accompany the article the location would be where the accident would have happened on the coast of Portishead by some hazardous rock. The costume I will use for this would be a pair of crutches that I have I will also try to make the appearance of a cast underneath their trousers to emphasize the injury. The person who saved him will also be standing next to him with the dog that he was walking at the time. The shot This article will be the main article that will feature on the second page of my newspaper.

Bristol Post Wallace & Gromit Link

During the summer there was great scheme for Bristol which raises money for charity as well as promoting tourism for the city. What was introduced was a wide variety of Gromit, from Wallace & Gromit, models which were spread all over the city with a very different appearance to each one. Examples of such are from a buzz light year Gromit to a union jack Gromit. With the models spread all over the city many people go around looking for them therefore promoting tourism for the city and then after the summer they will be sold off for charity. The Bristol Post utilizes this interest in the city with them working in synergy with the new tourist attraction. One thing the Bristol Post does to work with the scheme is create a variable title appearance for each edition of the newspaper in the various styles linked with each model. On top of that, Gromit does take a big presence on the front cover of the newspaper showing that they are proud to be working in conjunction with the idea as well as showing there is an interest from the readers of the newspaper. Inside the newspaper there are also some articles linked with this topic on several things such as the process of planning and creating a model Gromit. This shows that local people are have a strong interest in this scheme and that due to this, the Bristol Post are building on a good story. One of the main features that encourages readers to purchase the newspaper is the part within the newspaper that shows several pictures of the public by the dogs that they sent in this encourages people to get the newspaper so they can see people they know within the newspaper. What this also proves is the point that local newspapers are more likely to publish positive stories in their newspapers than the national press although, it is not reliant on it.

What I Gained from my Research

I gained quite a lot of useful information that I gathered from the questionnaire. In summary I will now adopt a blue and white colour scheme due to the link the colour has to the town as well a being one of the main two colours being suggested within the survey. I was thinking about a red colour scheme as it is not as common as a blue colour scheme for newspapers however, I decided upon a blue colour scheme as there is a maritime link Portishead town has as it's a coastal town. While there was an obvious link between the colour and the town I could not think of link to the town which would justify the use of the colour.
Another point I received from the questionnaire is for a mixture of stories based on the local community with not only negative articles. From this feedback I have received I will make sure that there will be mixture of positive and negative articles in my local newspaper. I'm thinking of doing a criminal act from a youth for my negative story within my newspaper while I'll include at least one positive story in the newspaper which would be on the second page. This will accompany several other stories that won't feature in as much detail.
The font that I will be using for the main body text within my newspaper will be times new roman, due to the fact that is easier to read than the other alternatives which is paramount for the product. It is also a similar font to the font that the professionals use on newspapers published today. This text will be set at font size 12 as this is the common size for newspapers' body text. I will also alter the text size for headers depending on how important they are with size 14 for sub-headers and either size 24 or 36 for the main headline on the front cover.
The final point I will mention from my questionnaire is the title of the newspaper which, will now be named 'Portishead Post' which was the preferred option chosen from the survey that I sent out. I like the name of the newspaper as it is obvious what the name represents with the area and what it is within the title. The other aspect I like about the title is simple point but both words within the title begin with the letters 'Po' which seems to have more meaning a looks better to the eye.

Questionnaire Results

During the summer I conducted a survey to add to the research that I have already conducted, from this I would be able to understand what other people/audience want from the newspaper. I've received feedback from a total of 12 people of variable ages. Here is some of the information about them:

Following up from that I tried to make the information gathered from the previous questions useful by asking them whether they read local newspapers. When checking up one their answers it is noticeable that the younger participants were less interested than the older participants of the survey in reading their local newspaper, which is what I expected.

After asking about some information about themselves I started to ask some questions that would aid with my research. The first question that I gave them to answer was 'What is your preferred name for a local newspaper in the region of Portishead?' for this I gave them several suggestions they could select for their preferred name of the newspaper and if they had a better idea I gave the option of letting them gave their suggestions. Here are the results:

When you look at the results the preferred name for my newspaper would be 'Portishead Post' with the big majority. The one other suggestion that was given was just 'The Post' which is quite similar to the most popular choice. From this information it helps gauge my judgement on what the name for my newspaper will be with it now likely being called 'Portishead Post' from the feedback I have received.
The next question I wanted them to answer was for them to pass their judgement on their preferred colour scheme for not only the newspaper but, will also feature on the poster that will accompany it and this was the response:

The answers given from the question were predominately of either the colour red or blue with a couple of alternatives given but, the likely outcome would be either red or blue. The decision upon this may depend on several reasons such as the relevance of the colour to the area which is why I am leaning towards blue as it is a town linked  with the sea.
The final question I gave to them was 'What do you look for in a newspaper and why?' this question was posed to observe several aspect. One of which is what they expect/want from a local newspaper but, also helping with what sort of stories that would feature within a local newspaper being reinforced with a reason why.

This was the most detailed response I received and the overview of the responses are that in local newspapers there should be just as much good news as bad which national press may lean towards for dramatic effect. The articles are also very community focused with achievements and events of its local community feature that maybe overlooked.