A2 Production Evaluation
Digital Technology
Without digital technology I could not have produced my project and without the indesign software I used I could not have produced it at the high standard I believe it is at.
Indesign along with photoshop are great pieces of software because they allow anyone from the most amateur person such as a student like me to a professional to produce a fine piece of work, obviously if it is used by professionals it took me time to learn all of the functions of it, but I feel spending this extra learning how to use the software has benefited my project because this type of design software allows much more variation than more basic programs that I know people have produced their work on such as publisher.
The initial structure of the newspaper I produced was aided by the use of this program because the program allowed me to get a structure that was more accurate to what a real newspaper would look like than if I used office software and had to start the structure of a newspaper from scratch with inadequate tools within the software that would make the graphics that I designed look very amateur.
Another thing that puts indesign a cut above any other pieces of software that could be used for producing a newspaper is that the tools change to suit the specific production you are creating, this makes it easier for me to produce a good quality piece of work unlike other pieces of software where the tools are very general for example there are specific fonts you can use for a newspaper, there are also basic templates, and shapes that show you how your newspaper could be set out.
Creativity
The way in which the design of my newspaper differs from most other local newspapers is that the graphics on the front cover are more vibrant in comparison to others in order to attract a younger target audience, but with this I avidly stuck to the conventional layout and structure of a newspaper because without this the front cover and also the second page will begin to look like a magazine rather than a newspaper. Furthermore I believe that a newspaper is a form of media which is not often changed because the design is not important, a newspaper is not produced to aesthetically please people the content is far more important. However in relation to what I have written earlier in this paragraph newspapers can differ slightly depending on what socio-demographic they are aimed at for example tabloid newspapers which are filled with graphics and pictures more than words are aimed at the working class and lower middle class because they are assumed of less intelligence so would prefer something nearer to a magazine, whereas the middle and upper classes will be looking for something on the whole more intellectual and therefore something with a lot more content. My newspaper is somewhere in between tabloid and broadsheet due to the factor of having to aim the paper at an area with all social and political groups in it meaning that the newspaper has to be fairly neutral in its content.
In order to break convention slightly and aim my paper at a different age group to the County Press I have linked some of my local news stories to national news stories such as one of my articles which talks about the up and coming general election, questioning whether conservative should be reinstated on the island and whether they will do the job nationally if they get the majority. I will also cover some major national stories but only a few every week such as the one included in the week I produced my newspaper for on the supposedly huge increase in terrorism in the U.K.
Research and Planning
My research into the culture behind the production of news and my knowledge previous to this project helped me come to the conclusion of a target market for my newspaper. This idea of a target market added me in both the design and content of the newspaper, I have clearly focused on how the target audience effected the design of my newspaper in the previous paragraph so here I will focus on content and research helped me to structure and write it.
I have stuck to convention with a clear banner across the top with the main headline along with the title, IOW Mail, I also used cross-headings which are often used in newspapers to grab the readers attention they give a sentence in bold above the article giving a summary of it. I felt it was less necessary to use cross-headings on less significant stories as the aim is to grab the readers attention with the most interesting news stories. I have also included picture captions with the photo type, this is done almost always now so that if for any reason a reader sees some significance in the photo they know they can find it on the internet in a readable format. I have also included both a feature so that the reader can feel involved in terms of their opinion and hard news so that if people want a story that is purely fact there needs are met. Many newspapers avoid giving an index, however I feel it is crucial once again in grabbing the readers attention because if a potential buyer wants to see if there are any articles or features grabbing their attention they can skim through the parts of the newspaper they desire to look at. I have also used spill lines on my front page but have not backed them on the third or fourth page because I am only completing the first and second pages. Of course the way in which the articles are written is neutral because as I said about the design it is a paper designed for an area as opposed to the national newspapers which can be aimed at particular social groups such as the tabloid which will write in a simpler way for the working class and the broadsheets who aim their newspapers at the more educated groups and different political groups.
Post-production
My radio advert was produced with a friend of mine who works as a sports presenter on IOW radio, I used him because he has a better recording voice than I would do. I listened to local radio adverts and they were very short and snappy similar to mine because a listener will not want to hear much about a newspaper as it is a cheap product that can be easily accessed so a listener only wants here a brief acknowledgement of the name. I used manipulation software on garageband to tweak the voice slightly using autotune and also add in a loop soundtrack to make it sound a bit more ‘news like’.
My poster was quite difficult to design purely because there is not much research you can do on it because there is not much previous material to look at, however out of the posters I have looked at most of them use collages to emphasize the title of their newspaper with a caption underneath the title stating something about the newspaper. I have included a map in order to emphasize the region in which the newspaper is written for.
Overall I feel that my newspaper is fairly generic because it is aimed at a region rather than a socio-demographic. I have broken conventions with the way in which I am linking both global and national news stories to local news stories.
