Fonts

I have researched different types of font I could use for my newspaper and the website.

The first font I found was called Big Noodle Titling. I thought this might be good as my newspaper font because it's bold and stands out which means it would be good as a title. It also in a newspaper style already with sharp letters that are simple but again still stand out.

The next font I found was one called Old Sans Black. I liked this one because it looks casual but formal at the same time so would look good on a newspaper and the letters are bold black which means people would see it.

The next font I found was 'Headline'. I liked this font because it was all capitals and which would make it stand out and the lettering was more sharp and formal. I thought this would look good on a newspaper because of the capitals, it being quite a big font and it being very bold.

I liked the next font, 'National First Font', and was originally going to use this one for my newspaper as it looked like a typical newspaper font even though it was a sans serif and not serif, it would look good on a newspaper because it is a bold black. I didn't like this one though because of the big spacing between the words as when trying to put words on my poster, they wouldn't all fit on the page so I couldn't put what I wanted to on my poster.

The next font, 'Optimus Princeps', I liked because with my newspaper being called 'Castle News', I thought the font looked like it would be associated with medieval times and castles, it looked like it would be the stereotypical font that would be associated with those times. When I tried this font on my poster, I didn't really like the look of it because it looked to old fashioned and would not really be used as a newspaper font.

The last font I have found, 'Sanford', is the font I am going to use as my font for my newspaper. I am using this one because it reminds me of castles but isn't such a stereotypical font as the last one. It would look good on a newspaper because it is bold and would stand out and is a typical font for newspaper because it is a serif font and most newspapers have a serif font for their newspaper title and font.

Mastheads

I have researched in to different mastheads to get ideas for what mine could look like. I have researched mainly local newspaper mastheads but have also researched some tabloid ones to
see the difference.

The Halstead Gazette

The Halstead Gazette's masthead has a big title which is centre aligned. This means the title will stand out and will people will know exactly what paper it is. It has inlcuded the date, time and website also in it's masthead.The date is aligned to the left under the paper name with the website in the middle and the price to the right. From most newspaper mastheads I have researched, most of them use this layout for the date, website and price. The newspaper has also used different colours for different words, 'Halstead' in black and 'Gazette' in red. They use a serif font for the name of the paper which makes the paper name look simple but still makes it stand out.

Braintree and Witham Times

The Braintree and Witham Times also uses different colours for different words in the paper name, this time using green and black. 'Braintree and Witham' is in a smaller font than 'times' which makes the newspaper company of the newspaper stand out more than the location the newspaper is from. They also use a banner type style block under 'The Braintree and Withan Times' where the date and price are located. However, they do not include their website with theuir date and time and again their date is on the left with the price on the right. Instead of the website in the middle of the banner, they have what could possibly be their slogan of, 'incorporating the Dunmow, Thaxted and Felstead Times'. The writing in the banner is white which makes the colours contrast which makes the date and price stand out. Again, this is also a serif font and is similar to the Halstead Gazette's font which again makes the title simple.

Suffolk Free Press

The Suffolk Free Press has different colours for it's title too, they use blue and black. They put the 'Suffolk' in black and in a smaller font but the 'free press' in blue and bigger font. I think this is to make the the 'free' stand out and emphasise the fact that the paper is free. It is also in a serif font but is more casual than the font used for the Halstead Gazette and the Braintree and Witham Times. Even though, blue and black are used to make the paper name stand out, the colours used aren't so bold as the colours used in the other papers. The date and website are included but these are in a much smaller and black font, which isn't very clear from a distance.







For research on my tabolid paper I used The Sun, as this a very well known and popular paper.

The Sun uses red and white for its colours which are colours which contrast against each other so will make 'The Sun' stand out. The Sun doesn't take up all of the room at the top of the paper and only uses the left side of it. On the right side it has a news story included in the paper whereas the local newspapers have small advert for something in that area in the right corner but it is only small and most the paper name takes up the rest of the room. The Sun uses a different layout under the the title for the date, time and website. They have their date on the right, the same as the local papers, but the price in the middle and website on the right whereas the local papers have their website and price the other way around.





The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph goes with a simple design for it's masthead. It uses just a black, serif font that looks quite fancy for a newspaper name title. It also uses the date as all newspapers do in their mastheads. However, they do not have a website address in their masthead even though a lot of other newspaper do this, the telegraph doesn't. They do include the price and also some writing which is probably the slogan for their newspaper which is 'Britain's Best-Selling Quality Daily'. The writing in the masthead such as the date, price and slogan are in a simple, black, sans serif font that stands out and tells the information it needs to even though it is only simple.

Newspaper Posters

Newspapers do not really advertise using posters, instead they use television adverts or billboards outside newsagents with the most recent front page headline written on it in black and white which is supposed to persuade the reader to read the headline and go in the shop to buy that newspaper. Most of the billboards I have looked at only have about 5 or 6 words printed on to them but they are dramatic and shocking words to make the person walking past want to buy the newspaper to read that story, the words on the billboard are normally words about the most recent and top story the newspaper has.

This is an example of a newspaper billboard which has the main headline written on it and it only has 5 words to describe the top story.













When it came to designing my newspaper poster, I had to think of ideas myself and couldn't really follow rules or conventions of newspaper posters as there aren't any as newspapers don't advertise this way.

My Newspaper Poster Ideas

As newspapers do not really advertise using posters, I had to research my own way of how to design and layout my poster.

My first decision was about what should appear on the poster;
-sport
-news
-whats on
-features
-local stories
-local jobs
-advert

I decided that my newspaper would be aimed at people of a local area so decided to include the latest news, the latest sports and whats on topics to put on to my poster as this is what people of a local area would be more interested in.

I first tried to design my poster on word but the pictures and words would not format together properly and it looked a bit bland. I decided the best idea would be to design it on publisher as this way I could add background colours and the pictures and words went together well as I was able to design the page layout better.

Newspaper Prices

National Newspapers

Title	Price
MONDAY TO FRIDAY
Financial Times	£1
Guardian	70p
Independent	70p
Daily Telegraph	70p
Times	65p
Daily Mail	45p
Daily Express	40p
Daily Mirror	38p
Sun	35p
Daily Star	35p
SATURDAY
Independent	£1.40
Daily Telegraph	£1.40
Times	£1.30
Guardian	£1.30
Financial Times	£1.20
Daily Mail	70p
Daily Express	70p
Daily Mirror	55p
Sun	55p
Daily Star	50p
SUNDAY
Sunday Times	£2.00
Sunday Telegraph	£1.80
Independent on Sunday	£1.80
Observer	£1.70
Mail on Sunday	£1.40
Sunday Express	£1.20
News of the World	85p
Sunday Mirror	85p
People	80p
Daily Star Sunday	75p

This table shows the price of the more popular newspapers. It shows the proce during the week and on a Sunday. As you can see from the table the price of a newspaper is more expensive on a Sunday compared to during the week. The only reason a newspaper is more expensive on a Sunday is because it contains more news and is bulkier so the customers have to pay more for it.

Local Newspapers

Braintree and Witham Times - 45p
Halstead Gazette - 43p
Suffolk Free Press - Free

The local papers are a lot cheaper than the more popular papers because they only really contain local news that would be aimed at the local people so would not be bulky so wouldn't have a lot of paper to pay for. If it wasn't cheap then the people from the place that the paper is aimed at wouldn't buy as it was be too expensive just to see their local news. The local papers are also cheaper because they wouldn't have to mass produce them as they are only aimed at people from that area meaning that there would only be a certain amount of people that would buy it so would be cheaper to pay for it so they make the paper cheap. However, a national paper such as The Sun would have to be mass produced as it is national and different people from all over the country would buy it. This is a reason they make the paper more expensive than a paper from a local area as it would be more expensive to produce the millions of copies of The Sun they need so need more money to pay to produce it. 

Newspaper Website Features

Weather
The first feature that I have found on local newspaper websites is a weather feature. This shows the weather and temperature in that area.

Calender Feature
Another feature on the local newspaper website is a calender with times with different clubs and events happening in that area on that day.

Search Bar

This allows people to search the newspaper website for different things in the area such as stories, jobs and to be able to advertise items for sale in that area.

Top Stories
Another feature a lot of newspaper websites have, if it's a national paper or a local paper, they have a top stories feature which shows the most read and popular stories of the day.

 



Newspaper Stories

The local newspapers contain lots of different stories.

Halstead Gazette
The Halstead Gazette contains stories about incidents with local people, stories about the local area and what's been happening. For example, in the Halstead Gazette some stories included this week are a story about the local town and how its walks have been improved by the riverside. Another story included is about how a charity is trying to raise money because of the death of a local man in the area.

Braintree and Witham Times
Again, the Braintree and Witham Times contains stories about the local area and the people within it. For example, in the most recent Braintree and Witham Times I looked at, the stories included were about a tidy up in the local area by residents of the area and about the crime total in the area and how many criminals there are in that area.

However, national newspapers contain completely different stories altogether.

The Mail
The Mail contains stories focussed on celebrities and celebrity gossip. It also contains stories from around the world and not just in one area but there are some stories included that are from local places. For example,  a lot of stories are about celebrities that are very popular such as Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole. However, the story that stands out the most and is the first story is about some squirrels being rescued from a hurricane and is not a big story with celebrity gossip.

Colour Schemes

The Sun



The Sun newspaper has a black and white colour scheme with red to make the title 'The Sun' stand out on the front page. The picture is also in colour to make that stand out as it emphasises the story more and tells what the story is just by the picture and if the picture is in colour it makes it stand out.

Halstead Gazette



The Halstead Gazette uses black and white even for the story title and and puts the title of the paper, 'Halstead Gazette', the pictures and the advertisements in colour. Even though the title of the story is in black they have also put in bold which makes it all stand out which makes the story head line eye catching.

The Braintree and Witham Times



The Braintree and Witham Times is a lot like The Halstead Gazette as it has colour for the pictures, advertisements and title of the paper and then then story in black and white. However they only feature a small prargraph of the story on the front page and have the title a lot bigger and again in bold so it stands out a lot. Most of the newspapers have only a small paragraph of the story featured on the front page.

Suffolk Free Press



The Suffolk Free Press have a black and blue colour scheme for their paper. On their paper front page the title of the paper is in black and blue and the title for the story is in black. the adverts they have on the front page are also in blue however, the pictures are in normal colour. The story featured on the front page however, has a bigger opening paragraph or two compared to the other papers which only have a few sentences as an opening paragraph to the story.

Newspaper Website Pages

The Sun
The Sun has a lot of pages on their website including pages on sport, celebrities and television. This page is from their 'Bizarre' page which has funny and weird stories about celebrities.

This page is from their sports page. Again they include news and gossip about the more well known sport personalaties.

The Telegraph
This page is from The Telegraph's news page. This includes news about the more current affairs happening in the world and news to do with royalty and not really much about celebrities. Also when you go on to their news page it has another list of different news categories you can read about. The first few on the list are the world, politics and UK. The celebrity category is one of the last on the list showing that they know they have a certain audience to cater for and don't really find having stories about celebrities that important. Other options on their categories list are subjects such as finance and culture which you wouldn't find on The Sun's website as they both have two very different audiences.

This shot shows the finance page of The Telegraph. The finance page only comes up on broadsheet newspaper websites such as The Telegraph and The Guardian.

The Suffolk Free Press

The Suffolk Free Press is obviously a more local paper and therefore will only concentrate on more local news and will publish local information that people in that area need to know. This means that the layout on their website is slightly different from other more known newspapers.

This also means the other pages included on their website are different categories from more popular newspapers such as The Sun and The Telegraph. Their categories for different pages are more subjects that people in that area would want to read about such as news and community. The community category therefore indicates that this is obviously just going to be more information to do with that area because they're not going to post a community page about the whole county. When selecting the community category to view, it has options to look at pages such as announcements for birthdays and deaths which isn't going to be birthdays and deaths again for the whole county it would just be for that area for local people who may know the people who have announcements about them in the paper.



Different Newspapers

The Telegraph

The Telegraph concentrates on subjects to do more with politics and more world news. The Telegraph is aimed at more businessmen and women or older people. It uses more posh language because of the people it is aimed at. The Telegraph is also called a broadsheet newspaper as newspapers like The Telegraph are seen as big newspapers with long pages, A3 size.

The Sun

The Sun concentrates more on celebrities and their lives and on the daily news. It is aimed more at younger people as they would be more interested in celebrities whereas older people would prefer to read about the world and what’s happening to our country in the way of politics so they would be more likely to read The Telegraph. It uses more slang and easy to understand language because of the younger people that would be reading it. The Sun would be called a tabloid. This is because it is much smaller in size compared with a broadsheet. Also, the term 'tabloid jounalism' means to focus more on stories about crime, TV and celebrity gossip which are the sorts of stories The Sun writes about. 

The Mail
The Mail, however, concentrates on stories from politics and Parliament to celebrity gossip meaning that it covers a whole range of stories. This means that The Mail is targetted at everyone because of the stories it covers.

The Halstead Gazette
The Halstead Gazette is a local paper. This will obviously be aimed at the people who live in that area. This means it will have local news stories that the target audience will want to read about because it is about things in their area.