Creating My Poster

After looking at other posters that advertise other newspapers, this has made me realise that I need to think of a slogan/statement for the news paper. All of the newspaper posters have a slogan that is catchy and each of these slogans and statements are completely individual from each other, so I need to think of something completely unique that matches up with the name of the paper and sounds like it is suited to be a newspaper slogan.
Here are some of the ideas that I have come up with for the slogan/statement for my newspaper poster:
- "It's the Heart of Essex"
- It's a part of your Heart
- Be a part of our Heart
- Be a part, of the Essex Heart
- Discover the Heart of Essex
- Keeping Essex alive
- Our Heart is your heart


After attempting to fill a page with the name of the paper and it's slogan. I realised I'm definately going to need a photograph.
Here are some of the ideas that I have come up with for the photographs:
1. I could create a large red heart out of card/paper and have various different people holding this i.e. all different ages, sizes and class's etc.
2. I could take individual photographs of different people (like above) but in their comfort zones.
(for the two ideas above, I would use the slogan 'Our Heart is your heart')


Below are the photographs that I have taken for my poster. I have decided to do idea 1, of having people hold a heart, but instead of 9 photographs, I will take 4 and arrange them into the same shape in the centre of the poster.
The first two photographs below are of friends at sixthform. I felt that I would need to convey a wide target audience, so I would use a wider variation of ages rather than anything else. Out of the first two, I will be using the second photograph because they look a lot more comfortable in the photograph.

The photograph above is of my parents, I felt that if I were to use more couples rather than groups of people then it would emphasize the use of the heart and the name of the paper.
I decided to take another photograph of a couple, but of a different age. Out of the two below, I will be using the first photograph as the flash created a brighter photograph and it's more clear.
Below, I have taken a photograph of my grandparents. I felt that it would broaden the target audience of my newspaper and this would be conveyed on the poster.

Stage 1 - Cutting the images out
Below, I am cutting around the people in the photograph, this is so that all of the images can be put together onto my poster. I have done this on GIMP using the paintbrush tool.


Once I had drawn around the people in each of my photographs, I had to get rid of the background. I did this using the Bucket Fill tool, shown below.


After clearing the background, this is how my photographs turned out.
Stage 2 - Putting the poster together
I chose to create my poster on an A4 template, this would mean that it could become an advert in a magazine for example.

Once I added each photograph, I had to scale them down because they were far too big and took up too much space each.


After experimenting with possible lay outs for my poster, I decided that having them in a box, 2x2 looks far too plain and simple. So I have decided to rotate them 2 x 2 at 17 degrees.
After putting the photographs together, I added the text. (shown on the two printscreens below)

I decided that if I were to stick to mainly black and red in the poster, then it would stick with the theme I have chosen for my newspaper and it's website. I also chose to keep 'heart' in the same font as the masthead because it links it all together.
This was my final poster. Until I realised that it doesn't actually look complete. I felt that the background of the poster was far too white, so I added some red to the poster, which resulted in my final poster, shown in the Finalised Poster post.

Researching Posters

In this post, I am going to look at posters that in one way or another advertise a specific newspaper.
All of the posters that I could find online are posters for national newspapers that are sold country wide.

This poster advertises '6 new sections' of the newspaper 'The Times'. It displays both what is it offers readers, therefore establishing a target market; it has 'The Saturday Review', a magazine (this one has a photograph of Amy Winehouse - this could be representing a music magazine), a magazine for the weekend and only what I can assume to be a sports magazine as it has a page of a photograph of a cricket player. The Times has a fairly well known slogan: "Only In The Times"; this tells readers that The Times is an individual newspaper, and the only newspaper that offers these 6 new sections. It also has the times logo in white in the top right corner, so the readers know that 'The Saturday' is part of The Times.

This poster is advertises The Daily Telegraph. The name of the paper is written in a fairly medieval font. Its slogan is 'It pays to think big.' with three pictures with small but strong statements about three incredibly famous personalities (John Lennon, Andy Warhol and Bill Clinton) it what their parents jobs were, this shows the readers and audience that they can have faith and hope in themselves and what they want to achieve; giving readers confidence and faith in the newspaper. The photographs are bright and bold and they stand out from the plain white background and (in comparison) the small black font, the name of the paper is also bolder and larger than the slogan and the small statements beneath each photograph. The photographs are fairly central to the whole poster, which initially draw the attention to the poster, then the attention is drawn to title of the newspaper and it's slogan.

This poster advertises the Sunday Times, it's slogan is 'For all you are.'. The background of the poster is grey and white and the font is inverted white on grey or visa versa. The only colour on the poster is used on the images of the sections that the newspaper includes, these link to the heading of the poster; 'There's a part of you for every part of The Sunday Times.' The reader/audience is now aware that The Sunday Times have a variation of topics in the paper, this interests the readers/audience into the newspaper because they are persuaded to beleive by the heading and the slogan that there is something for them to read that will be of their interest.

This poster is for The Sun newspaper, it is a photograph of a receipt. This receipt has a list of thirteen things that The Sun includes inside. This poster is quite different to the other posters that I have looked at, because it shows a variation of things, from 'Mystic Meg' (horoscopes) to "£9.50 Holidays" aswell as the typical sections like 'Politics'. This poster, also unlike others that I have looked at shows the price of the paper; 30 pence. Because of the receipt being in a list format, the readers are attracted to the top of the list first, therefore reading through the list and finding out what the sun includes, then the font increases in size and it reads 'TOTAL 30P'. This is then followed by the only coloured item on the receipt, which is the logo/name of the paper; 'The Sun'.

Because of the name of the paper being the only coloured item on the whole poster, it emphasizes it's indivuality. After this, the price if repeated, emphasizing to the reader/audience that the paper is cheap, but interesting and of good quality; 'All for just 30p'

This poster, as it states, advertises 'The Times'.
This is a very different poster compared to the others that I have looked at, as it doesn't particularly focus on the paper and the variation that it may include. The photograph is of a shark being caught in a fishing net, and it has become entangled in it. This links to the small paragraph beneath the title of the paper:

"On current forecasts, the world will run out of seafood in 41 years.

Only The Times has an ocean correspondent. If you care about the world we live in, the 70% of it that is covered by water is also covered by us.

Be part of The Times" Having a unique poster like this, gives the newspaper an idea of it being unique and it shows the reader that they have a specialist in topics to do with the sea and topics surrounding it. This leads readers to beleive that 'The Times' may also have specialists in other topics, therefore being a very reliable source of information that is true. It also uses what could be considered as emotional blackmail, by using a photograph of a shark being caught and struggling in a fishing net. It also bluntly reads that the earth will run out of seafood, followed by a short, punchy sentence. The "emotional blackmail" is so subtle that it isn't seen as an annoying nag, like some television adverts are (that advertise similar issues). The poster also includes an interesting fact about the world & the sea, this interests and intreegues readers into what the newspaper can offer them and hints at how much information they could gain from reading. 'The Times' is spread across the fin of the shark, this centres the shark, and then draws us to acknowledge what the poster is about, but the title is also brought to the main focus of the poster because it is so bold and in white, capital font. Lastly, the final sentence on the poster reads 'Be part of The Times.'; this is a short punchy sentence that has some form of persuasive technique that makes the reader feel a part of 'The Times', even though they have only been told that they should be and they have only come across a small piece of information.

This poster is for the Guardian newspaper's website. It's a fairly simple design. A plain white background with multi-coloured wiggled lines that are attatched to simple grey computer mice attatched to the ends. 'theguardian' is written in the format of one word, 'Guardian' is written in bold, navy compared to 'the' and '.co.uk' in a pale grey colour. This is at the top right corner and the other text and information is linked to a pink cable. The text at the bottom says:
'Listening to lots of different views
rather than just one
means you can decide for yourself
instead of just being told what to think.
Don't you agree?
You don't have to ofcourse.'
This involves the reader with the use of 'you', twice along with the rhetorical question. It is also in a fairly conversational tone, this is some what comfortable and relaxing. The text is also in various colours. The image of the corded computer mice is almost in a spherical shape. With one cord trailing off on it's own. This draws the attention straight to the text. The poster states a message about there being various views in the stories/website, this is also highlighted by the various colours, especially on the text. This also shows the readers that there is no specific aim of the paper; it has stories for "everyone".

This poster is also for The Guardian website. It has many similar attributes as the poster above. The name of the website is set out in the same way, and it still has the multi-coloured corded computer mice. All the cords are initially joint to the slogan at the bottom. The mice are spread out, but they all end up in the direction of 'theguardian.co.uk', therefore drawing attention to the name of the paper/website. This method is also used to draw attention to the slogan; 'Listen to many. Decide for yourself.' Similarly to the poster above, the reader is involved by the word 'yourself'. This slogan is also telling the reader that there is a variation of ideas and articles. Therefore again, catering for "everyone's" needs.

This poster, on the left, is again a poster for The Guardian's website. Unlike the other two posters, this one does not use the multi-coloured corded mice. Instead, it has 'opinion' and 'fact' repeated in a curved line in a variation of colours. The way that these words are set out and curved into a V shape, puts more emphasis on the small paragraph of text and 'theguardian.co.uk'. The small paragraph reads:
'Opinions are not facts.
What happened
and how you feel about it
are two different things.
And people should know
which is which. '
As with the other Guardian posters, with a few words on each line, the new line adds a break inbetween them. This adds emphasis to each line.
The use of the large font reading 'opinion' and 'fact' shows the reader that they have both, and it allows the reader to be a part of the stories if they want to.

Through out researching into posters for newspapers, I have struggled to use any posters that are created for a local newspaper by searching online. So to try and help my research, I am going to try and find posters for newspapers around where I live, for example in shops, newsagents, post offices and other places where newspapers are sold or even where they are written, for example, on the high street in Haverhill, there is a building designated for 'The Haverhill Echo', as does Halstead, with 'The Halstead Gazette'.

These are the conventions that I have found through out these posters.

• 1 main image
• Not alot of text
• Eyecatching
• Involves the newspaper website
• The general tone is serious
• Features the name of the newspaper with its logo
• The advert tells you what is unique about the newspaper
• They aren't gender or age specific
• They include prounouns to involve the audience
• 'Value for money' is a technique used to sell the newspaper

Initial Poster Ideas

In this post, I am going to explore my ideas for the poster for my newspaper.

Idea 1
For my first idea for my newspaper poster, I could design and create a poster to advertise the subscription for my newspaper.
For this, I would need to:
- Work out on average how much a yearly subscription of a newspaper and decide on a discount percentage
- Decide on the exact price of my newspaper
- Choose the size of the paper of which I will print the subscription advert on
- Decide whether to use headlines from the news paper over 'the past' or to use the front page of the newspaper that I will create. Therefore I will have to create my newspaper before I create my poster.
- If I am to use a printscreen or what could be considered the front page or any page of the newspaper, I will need to create atleast the front page of my newspaper before I create the subscription poster.
-I have now worked out that for all 52 weeks of the year, to buy a 40p newspaper every week, it would cost £20.80. To advertise the subscription further, I could offer a discount of 20%, resulting in a price of £16.64 for the year.

Idea 2
For this idea, I could create a poster that advertises what the new local newspaper is about. For this I would need to:
- Decide what size the advert would be printed on.
- Decide whether to include headlines or stories.
- Look into other adverts for newspapers and see how they would advertise the paper
- Decide what, if any, photographs I would use
- Choose an appropriate and understandable font

Creating My Website

Initially, I had started to use Piczo.com to design and create my website, but after it becoming apparent to me that Piczo.com is too unprofessional for the standards that I want to create a website for my newspaper, I am now using Moonfruit.com as I can create a website with the professional standards that I want and that can create a professional outlook like those I have researched. In creating my website, I had to choose what layout I wanted to use for the home page (I can change the layout for my hyperlinked pages when I create them). So I chose the 'Blank Page' option so that I could create the page exactly how I want it to look like.

In choosing the name of my website , I have chosen 'TheEssexHeart.moonfruit.com', as it is the chosen name of my paper.

When creating the menu bar of links at the top, I added the name of every page that I have chosen to display on the homepage of my website. I have chosen (other than the homepage itself) to have 'Local News', 'National News', 'Sport', 'Leisure', 'Your Voice', 'Contact Us', 'Jobs', 'Vehicles' and 'Login Register'. The two pages that I am going to create hyperlinks to are 'Local News' and 'Sport'. I have chosen these two pages because I feel that I will be able to use a wide range of skills in what I create through out the pages, for example on the 'Local News' page, I will be able to display photographs along with their stories, and I will also be able to write interviews with people and create a suiting layout for the page so that the information and the photographs are well set out and in the best positiion for a reader to understand the articles on the page. This is what the menu bar looks like at the top of the homepage and how I created it:

The printscreens above and below are after I had created all ten of the pages and displayed them on the menu bar, present on every page in exactly the same position.

In this printscreen below, I am editing the links in the menu bar at the top of the page so that when a page is selected or hovered over with the mouse, the writing turns black and the background of the button turns white, and when the page is not selected or hovered over with the mouse, the button is pale grey and the writing it dark grey.


This printscreen is proof of the hover/select method working on the menu bar:

On other websites, I have come across advertisements in the corners of the page, similar to this, When my Dad started up his business, I created this advert for his website. He bought the rights to these photographs, so I have uploaded this to my website as an advertisement. This is on the home page's top left corner, shown below: I have also hyper-linked this advert to the website of 'Advantage Environmental', as all of the adverts on the websites that I have looked at link to the page that they are advertising.

When writing the stories up on the website, I chose different font for the title text and the body/actual article font. I did this to establish a clear difference between the article and it's title. For the title font, I chose 'Rockwell Light' as it is a bold font that stands out amongst the 'Ariel' font that I used for the article text. I chose 'Ariel' because it's simple and easy to read.

Looking through other local newspaper's websites, for example the suffolk Free Press', on the home page was a search bar where you can search what ever you want, probably used for searching for articles. This was a search bar for the search engine Google. I have also included a google search bar on the home page and the two hyper-linked pages. I feel that this enhances the professional outlook of my website, and I feel it has now become more realistic and up to date. A search bar would also allow the reader to view stories that are actually up to date for the time, and showing them other points of view about a specific article that they may want to know more information about.

To add the Google Search bar there is a choice of 'smart widgets' in the tool bar that the website offers.

This is what the search bar looks like:

I was able to shrink it so that it fits into the space I want it to go: just beneath the menu bar, to the right.

I have added a section on the home page that allows viewers/readers to see photos that (supposed) readers have sent in. I have also added information that viewers/readers would be able to send their photos in (via text or e-mail) and when looking at other news paper websites, they tended to have emails that were @nqe. After researching into what nqe was, I discovered that it stands for News Quest Essex, a company that is the leading newspaper publisher in Essex. I now realise that this would be an ideal e-mail add
ress to use for my website. I have decided to use teh@nqe.uk, the 'teh' standing for The Essex Heart. The number that I have chosen to use for texts is simply a 5 digit 87766. The websites that I have found with similar text message numbers are the Halstead Gazette with the number of 80360.

The next 3 images are images that I have created for my website (I used a program called GIMP to create them):

1. This image is for a page that would show the houses that are for sale in Essex. I chose to use the same font for this image as I have for the name of the paper. I have also decided to use a different colour for all of the images that would be a link to another page. This way they are easily identified by an individual colour.

2. This image would be a link to a page that had a list of events that are/were coming up in the current month. I felt that an icon of a balloon would be fairly appropriate as it covers a wide range of events that could be held.
3. This image would link to a page where jobs are listed under alphabeticalised areas in Essex.I chose to create a simple icon that links to the colour of the page. I felt that this would be appropriate for the page.

The three images below are adverts that I have created for my website (all created on GIMP):

The printscreen above shows my images uploaded onto my website (shown on homepage, sports page and local news) Looking at other newspaper websites, images like the ones I have created above also have text on them. So I thought it would look more realistic if I were to write over the top of these image. So I created a long rectangular box for them to go into, so that it shows they are all linked together and then I added a small see through grey box over the top of each image and wrote in italics what each image was about. I feel that all of the lines that I added to the images involve the reader more than just having the image. I chose to write them in a way that almost insists that the reader clicks on the images to 'Find your perfect home.'

I initially only had these images on my home page. But I felt that it would be better advertised if I were to add them to all three of the pages that I created. I was also inspired to do this by websites that I had looked at. I feel that the constant reminder on all of the pages of these three oppurtunities would encourage reader to click on the link and look through what the website offers.

On the websites that I have seen, they often advertise some form of job, usually a job searcher website. Therefore, I decided to create an advert for a job site. I came across totaljobs.com, and decided to create an advert for it. I printscreened the name of the website from it's homepage. I then pasted and cropped this into GIMP. I then filled the botom with the same colour as the rest of the the name and added & rotated the other text.

For the advert above, I used a photograph that I took at my cousins wedding in July. I cropped this photo and added the text. I was inspired to make this advert because of other adverts for events like wedding fairs being advertised on websites. Both of the adverts above appear on my homepage, and the total jobs advert also appears on my local news page.

Similarly to how I created the total jobs advert, I printscreened the name of the company from it's homepage then pasted it into GIMP and added the rest of the text. I have seen numerous websites advertised like this on newspaper websites, aswell as many other websites, so I felt it wouldn't ruin the realistic feel of the website to create an advert that advertised a website like find a property.com.

At the bottom of all of the websites I looked at were small buttons with links to the most important pages. I decided to do this on my website so that it was as close to a newspaper website as I could get. Above I have printscreened what I had to do to create these buttons, and below is the result of how I present the buttons at the bottom of all my webpages. In the printscreen below, I have also added social book marks. On various websites, not just newspaper websites, I have come across these bookmarks that allow the reader to 'follow' them on Facebook or Twitter for example. I felt that this would broaden the target audience as it tends to be younger people who use

The same image that shows what I had to select to create the link buttons also shows the option of making a HTML snippet. I used three HTML snippets on my home page. I found a useful websites where I could get various HTMLs. I got my date HTML from a website called timeanddate.com, there were various different clocks that I could use, but I felt it would look more proffessional and suit the style of my website more if I had the date in written format. I decided to put this just beneath 'The Essex Heart' on my menu bar, so it appears on every page. Shown below:

I also felt that it would be a good idea if I were to create a section dedicated to the weather forecast of the next few days. I had seen this on the BBC website and decided that it would look more professional if I weer to add this weather forecast. I got the HTML link from the Met office. I felt that the met office would show a reliable weather forecast. The down side to this HMTL link was that I could only choose one area. I therefore chose Colchester, as it is a fairly big area in Essex. If this box is clicked on, the reader is re-directed to the met office website

The third HTML code that I used was for a marquee. On other websites that I have come across, in particular news websites, they have a constanlty updated marquee beneath the 'Latest headlines' title. I couldn't find any marquees that enabled me to change what was written, so I have to have the same sentence going round the whole time. I decided to make the marquee about top stories of the month. I have shown this in the printscreen below.

Below, I have shown how I created the HTML boxes:

I had to copy and paste the link into the setup box, then apply it and then stretching the stripey HTML edit box so that it was the right size. To view the HTML I had to 'view my page'

Behind a lot of the things I'm adding to my website, I'll put a box behind them so that they stand out. The shapes can be added using the tool box, shown below. There are a variation of shapes to use, but for the most proffessional effect I am going to use just the square and the rounded square. Even thought it says that they are squares, it is possible to change to a rectangle so in most cases I will.

I have now added the shapes to the background of the items that I wanted to. The printscreen beneath is from the sports page. I have decided to add the dark grey rounded behind the photographs on this page and then behind the stories with out photographs I chose to have a lighter grey box so that is was obvious that the photographs didn't match that story: I feel that it individualised one story from the other.

On my website, I decided to stick to two main fonts: Ariel and Rockwell Light. I chose to use Ariel for the body text because it is easy to use. I stuck to a reasonable sized font through out my stories. I chose to have Rockwell Light as my Title font because it stood out from the rest of the text and it is also easy to read.

On all of the newspaper websites that I looked at there was a section dedicated to the most read and most commented/popular stories. I created this below. To make it stand out, I wrote 'most read' in capitals. To allow myself to have more stories, I made the text box too small so that the reader would have to scroll to look through all of the headlines, and less space is being used.

I felt that it would show more creativity if I added photographs to the webpage that weren't necessarily related to the articles surrounding them. The Suffolk Free Press inspired me to do this. They had an image slideshow of images that readers had sent in.
there are many options below on how to display photographs. I chose the slide show one because it looks more professional and suitable for a newspaper website as the others are for more creative and artistic purposes.

This is what I have done:

To add images I have to go through the same process shown above. 'Add image' and then apply. I have added my own photographs that I have taken in the past. I will add more so that the empty boxes beneath the biggest photograph are filled. I have chosen to apply 'April 2011' above this because I felt that if I base the website in April, it will be closer to the marking date. Above this I have written Your photos of Essex. this draws readers in because of the large font, and the use of 'you'.

Looking at E-mailing photos in, I felt that I had to make it obvious in how to mail photographs in to the newspaper so that we could publish them on the website. I created my e-mail address teh@nqe.co.uk. I chose this because teh is an abreviation of The Essex Heart. And looking at other email addresses were 'nqe'. I reserached into this and discovered that nqe stood for News Quest Essex. Here is what their website says about who they are:

"Newsquest (Essex) Ltd is the leading publisher of regional newspapers in Essex - publishing a total of sixteen newspapers including daily, paid and free weekly titles. In addition to newspapers we also publish a whole host of other publications from targeted monthly lifestyle magazines to other community led products."

I felt to create a realistic email address, rather than using something like hotmail, I could use this. I also added this 'Contact Us' box. This allows the reader to easily send a question or any information to the newspaper.

This is how I upload photographs:

Initially I have to upload photos to this file box, I then add them to the page or the slide show.

Above, is the articles on my homepage. I felt that I should have made these articles stand out than all of the others, So I gave all three photographs and put both photograph and text into a rounded square. All of the stories that I looked at on other websites that I looked at had the date and time shown just above or below the article. I chose to add this above the headline, in a smaller italic font so that attention was drawn to the headline still rather than the time and date that it was updated or written. I chose that there was not enough room to write the whole story on the home page of the website, so I wrote the beginning, just how I have seen on other websites and then beneath this, a link that says 'read more...' This makes sure that the reader knows that that is not the whole story, and they do not have very much information to read before they know whether they'll be interested in the story.

Initially, I had started to use Piczo.com to design and create my website, but after it becoming apparent to me that Piczo.com is too unprofessional for the standards that I want to create a website for my newspaper, I am now using Moonfruit.com as I can create a website with the professional standards that I want and that can create a professional outlook like those I have researched. In creating my website, I had to choose what layout I wanted to use for the home page (I can change the layout for my hyperlinked pages when I create them). So I chose the 'Blank Page' option so that I could create the page exactly how I want it to look like.