Research and presentation session

This week I started my PowerPoint presentation and I used Microsoft PowerPoint as this is the most suitable program to use when doing a presentation because it has features that makes it easier to do a presentation; for instance you can easily add a media clip (e.g.: movie and sound), you can easily design the slides, customise the transition of each slide which can make the presentation more interesting. In addition, users are also able to make their own charts (bar, pie, line charts); this will be useful for me because I can use this to illustrate and compare my results from my questionnaire later on. 

            I decided that my main portfolio project is a local newspaper with two ancillary projects which will be newspaper poster and two hyperlinked pages from newspaper website. My newspaper is going to be called Lambeth Press. I decided to name it after the Borough that I leave in so it will be easier for me to write an article/news about the area.  My target audience are lower to working classes but mainly parents and elderly people because I think those age group  are the ones that will be mainly interested in what’s going on within the local area. 

             I analyzed a lot of newspapers but the two main models I used are:

           For the first newspaper which is the South London Press I analyzed and spotted that The masthead is straight forward which shows important information such as the name of the newspaper and date of the publication. The lead headline is big enough to catch readers attention and also the space is used well as the headline is written over the picture and the story is in short paragraphs in small fonts. Also the byline is published in bold which shows the name of the reporter who wrote the story. Even though, the main model (person) in the picture is on the side, the picture  was still used effectively as they put the text over the background, so no space was wasted.

For the second design which is ‘The  Lite’ newspaper I learned these following things:

               In addition, I also brain stormed the generic conventions of a local newspaper. Using an Internet and hard copy of newspapers I found out some of the local newspaper’s name that exists in the market such as London 24, Stratford Express, Kilburn Time and East London  Advertisers.

Research on newspaper

I researched different types of newspapers as well as looked at other people’s work. I both looked at a hard copy newspaper and a 'soft' digital one on the Internet to give me a deeper understanding about newspapers.

I discovered that on newspapers the spaces on the page are used well, I hardly saw a gap on the pages. Also the editors tend to indent the beginning of the story or make the first letter bold and so much bigger than the rest of the text in the story; they do this to help the readers know where the story begins.  All newspapers have their own nameplate, which helps readers to develop a connection between the brand and the content in a way that enables the formation of preferences and judgments. This is an example of a nameplate:

Some newspapers load as much stuff as they can on and around the nameplate. Sometimes this can work to keep the reader’s attention up top, but without an incredibly sharp editing eye, it can quickly turn into an overcrowded mess. The masthead also sometimes contains the date of the publication and newspapers tend to have the price in a small font (or sometimes the same font size of the publication date.)
The language use in newspapers is colloquial, easy to understand and usually in short paragraphs. I am now aware that newspapers don’t just use any fonts, the layout editors need to make sure that the fonts are visible, readable and classic. Here are some of the most famous fonts used in a newspaper: times, Poynter, Franklin gothic, Helvetica, Utopia, Century old style, Interstate, Trade gothic, Nimrod and Optima.
Some newspaper uses a teaser. Teaser is a front page box placed over or below the masthead, which lists the important stories run on inside pages or boxes announcing a paper’s inside content.
Lead headline is in bold and much bigger font size that the rest of the text on a page. Lead headline is the title of a news report run in display type to catch the attention of the readers. A headline summarizes the most important point in a news report.

I will be following the normal conventions of a newspaper. I will do this by having a nameplate on the top, creating my own logo to differentiate my own media product from someone else's, by having a headline and a sidebar. I would also try to challenge these forms but as of now I am not sure how to, reason why I will be doing more research this following days/weeks regarding with this matter.

Preliminary Exercise

This is my summer assignment:

I did this newspaper front page when I haven’t done any research. As you can see, it follows some conventions however, it doesn’t really follow all the conventions of a real media product because for instance I don’t think that this newspaper demonstarate clearly what the newspaper’s attitude is  towards the news of the day. For my real project which will be a local newspaper. I will try to research as much as I can to make it look like a profosseional newspaper. I will be researching how newspapers are in general most specifically the local ones, the convention of it and the different type of layouts.

I will be using media technologies in my planning and research of my newspaper.  I will be using the internet to go on different websites as this will have a wide range of different information readily available and I am aware that not all the information on the internet are reliable and accurate so I will be careful in choosing the ones that I think  will help me with my project. When I think I have enough knowledge about the layouts I will be using Adobe InDesign to make my own different types of layouts and pick the best one, I will then use that for my project.  I am planning to take my original photos with my SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera as this is a professional camera the photos will be in good quality. However, if I have to edit the background or amend the photos I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS3.