Mock Layouts

Over the last couple of days I have added stuff to my layouts. I have uploaded images of what I have added. I did not take those pictures I just added them to my layout to see what they look like. The first two images are of my front page designs.

I have added some images and colour to my second pages aswell. Below are the layout for them.

Research & Planning

I started of the research and planning section by carrying out some secondary research. The analysis of Liverpool Echo was key as I think that the amount of research I did into the layout and conventions of the newspaper I gained enough information and knowledge into what makes a succesful newspaper. The analysis of the other two newspapers I analysed The Metro and The Challenge we're also a benifit to my secondary research as they had different target audiences compared to the Liverpool Echo. Overall, I think the whole of my secondary research was a success as I did not have have knowledge into codes and conventions of a succesful newspaper before I started this task.

I also carried out primary research which included creating and distributing two questionnaires, and emailing a local newspaper. Before I started work on my questionnaires I emailed the Liverpool Echo with a few questions that would be benifical to my research but unfortunatley I never recived an email back from them but I think that the amount of research I done besides this was enough for me to plan my newspaper anyway. I created two questionnaies, one for people who read newspapers and one for people that don't read them. All of the questionnaires were distributed to people within my targeted age range so I ask them certain questions like what the like to read in newspapers and how much they would be willing to pay for newspapers, etc. When I collected all my results I created graphs for every question so that I could see all of the results very easily and notice certain trends in the results.

Planning of my newspaper was the final part of the research and planning section of my newspaper production. I started this after I finished all the research I thought was nessecary. The main part of planning the focus group as I got feedback on all the layout and fonts that I thought would be suitable for my newspaper. The focus group was a key part as the other people within the group said what they liked and disliked about certain things about fonts and layouts and how I could make it better. I have now completed all the research & analysis for my newspaper. This has been key for me as it has informed me of what my target audience want from my newspaper. If I just ignore this feedback and just start creating a newspaper I know that wouldn't read this newspaper as it doesn't appeal to them.

Focus Group

In todays lesson, me and three other people got together as a group and looked at eachothers page layouts and fonts. For this I created three front cover layouts for my newspaper and three inside pages for my newspaper. I also gathered some fonts together for people to decide what would be the best one for my newspaper.

Below I have added the three front cover layouts for my newspaper.

These are the three front cover layouts I created for my newspaper and the most popular choice with people in my focus group was the final layout which got two votes and the first layout getting one vote. The feedback for my most popular was that it would be ideal if I could move the blurb on the left just above the advertisment above the main lead.

I will now upload my three inside pages.

These are the three inside pages for my newspaper. The most popular choice with people in my focus group was the first layout I drew. I had no feedback for these layouts as the people said that they wouldn't change anything about the layout the chosen. I will now upload the fonts that I think would be most suitable for my newspaper.

Above is the list of fonts that I think I could use for my newspaper. The most popular font on those that I chose was the New Athletic font which is third on the list of those fonts. The feedback that I was given on the chosen font was that it looked a modern but at the same time professional font.

Third Newspaper Analysis

Today, I will start my third and final local newspaper. The newspaper I have chose to analysis is the Liverpool Echo. The Liverpool Echo is one if not the most popular newspaper in my local area.

Front Page

The title of the Liverpool Echo is located in the top left of the front page. They have placed the title in this location as people start reading from the top of the page, and they also read from left to right. The colours blue and red are used in the title as these are the colours of the two main football teams in Liverpool. There are also 3 main sub stories on the front cover of this newspaper, with the genre of stories from Sport, Crime and Community Events. I think that newspapers have other stories on the front cover of the newspaper as the main headline might not generally interest the reader and this will encourage them to pick it up and read it. The headline is in a bold black font which is not unusual for newspapers to use, as this stands out to the reader. The paper also kept it short and used simple langauge so that it appeal to people who don't have a strong vocabulary and/or don't like reading a lot of text. Also included in the main headline story is the writer of the artical. This is common in newspapers but with the Liverpool Echo they have placed a coloured box around their name. I think they have done this so the right person gets credit for their work. The banner advertisment at the bottom also stands out to me as it has a black background with orange lettering and I think that this has been created like this as it stands out more to the readers, but it is placed at the bottom of the page as they want people to read their content first.

First Page

The lead story from the front page is continued on the second page but only takes up a fraction of the space on this page as they want to fit as much content into one page as they can include more and a wider range of stories. The left hand side of the page is used as a section were the newspaper has included information like contact details which is important as people would like to voice thier opinion on certain things and send in their own stories to the newspaper to publish. The left hand side also has a contents section which is fairly small compared to one's you seen inside magazine's etc. I think that this has been purposly been created like this so that people continue to read throught the stories that as a short sentence wouldn't usually catch their eye, but this could also be down to the fact that their is a lot of content published within a newspaper and it would take up a lot of room to list every single item. The Liverpool Echo has included a competition on the left hand side aswell, which I think encourages people to wonder what the next prize would be and they could also tell friends and family the prizes on offer which then encourages them to go out and buy a copy of the newspaper. Their is also a web section located on the left hand side of the newspaper, and I think that this is becoming a key feature for succeful newspapers to have with the amount of people being able to access the internet increasing everyday and if newspapers could publish their stories before any rivals they would gain a reputation and more readers

Newspaper Layout's

Today I have started the planning stage of my newspaper by looking at the layout of The Liverpool Echo and The Metro, which are both popular newspapers in the local newspaper. I tried to create a layout in a very simple form trying not to use a lot of text to explain what each part of the newspaper is. The first newspaper I have analysed was The Liverpool Echo. In a way the front page could act as the contents page for this newspaper as their is no Fillers and all the stories have a page number for readers to turn to. I have noticed that the lead story of this newspaper takes up a chunk of space on the front cover whilst the Lead is of a fairly small size, but it also includes the By-line. The Liverpool Echo has alot of blurbs included which act as other small headlines for other stories inside and these also include page numbers.

I will now look at the layout of the Metro newspaper. The Metro is aimed at a different target audience compared to the Liverpool Echo but it is still layed out in a simple manner like the Liverpool Echo. Their is a lot of fillers in the Metro but it has a lot less blurbs compared to the Liverpool Echo. The main image is not related to the lead story but instead has a large caption to go with it, whereas the Liverpool Echo never had a main image. I have noticed that a lot of newspapers keep their advertisment at the bottom of the page, which both of these newspapers also do. The main headline of this newspaper is short and uses a bold font but is more towards the top of the page whereas the Liverpool Echo headline is in a more central position

Second Questionnaire Analysis

In today's lesson I collected in my second questionnaire, and put the results into graphs, I kept some of the same questions from my first questionnaire like people's gender and age.

This question shows that the majority of people who don't read newspapers are females, but there is still also a few males that don't actually read them as well.


For this question, I asked the same question from my first questionnaire, 'How Old Are You?'. Most people who answered this question are 17, but unlike the answers from the first questionnaire, the answers are more mixed and their is some more people in the 18/19 year old category.

I decided to ask this question as I believe that its important for me to find out if people read other sources to find out news or whether they don't read in general. Even though 5 out of the 9 people I asked said they don't read other sources of information, 4 people said they do read them so I think its important for me to listen to the feedback they have given me, so I can try and attract them into reading my newspaper.


I asked the people who said 'Yes' to the previous question if they could list their sources of information, wheather is it a magazine or website. Two people that answered yes said that they read 'OK' magazine to find out information, whilst one person reads both 'OK' and 'Hello', and the remaning person stated that they read a sports magazine called 'Four-Four-Two'.

I also asked this question from my previous questionnaire as its important for me to include more stories of a popular topic for people that don't read newspapers, in order for me to get them interested in reading a newspaper. The majority of people, marked the other box and I again asked them to speicfy what they meant but all five people said that they don't actually read newspapers. Whilst the most popular option I listed was Gossip, which links back to the previous question of when people listed the sources of information they currently use as I know that both 'OK' and 'Hello' magazine are of the celebrity and gossip genre. Again, one person ticked the 'Sport' box and this also fits into the last question for the same reason

My last question was mainly a feedback question, as I asked my target audience what it would take for me to get them interested in reading a newspaper. I got feedback from all of the nine questionnaires I handed out for people. One person would like to read about more local news, whilst another person would like to read about local sport stories. Two more of the people that I asked wanted to read about more celebrity gossip, whilst another two people wanted a wider range of stories to read about. The most popular answer was that people wanted a newspaper that was aimed at their age. I don't think that some of this feedback is hard to put into my newspaper as I am creating a local newspaper, especially the local news and sport stories. Also, I don't think that it will be very challenging for me to create a newspaper aimed at my target audience as I am in this age range myself. The most difficult piece of feedback in my opinion would be including more celebrity gossip stories, as this is mostly found in national newspapers instead of local.