These are my logo ideas. On the page I wrote the pros and cos of each image and of the image's implications on the newspaper.
I have asked some of my interviewees which they liked best and which they thought would work well with the ideology. The wheel was the most popular and the cathedral the least popular.
My theme/priority was to find a symbol which represented Bristol, I feel that if I chose the wheel that this would in part represent Bristol as it is known as a cycling city. Additionally, the city is always on the go and the travelling implication in this symbol works with this. Another priority/theme is that the symbol MUST match with the rest of the paper, for example, the tree could represent how the paper is a source of information for people.
These are combinations of logos and the titles I came up with previously. I felt that the combination of Nomad and the wheel symbol worked particularly well. I did not decide to go for any with 'telegraph', 'express' or any word used in a real life newspaper because I felt this had been done too many times before and was pretty mainstream. I also asked which titles the interviewees liked best, these included; Daily Ignite, The Source, The Brig, Nomad and Daily Chalkboard, luckily I liked these choices and that they fitted in with the way I want the paper to go.
Of course, a common convention of a newspaper is to have adverts. In my interviews, the most common adverts my interviewees looked at were to do with home help such as building work, holistic therapies and family events, therefore I decided to mix practicality and leisure and create a plasterer ad, a firework display ad and an advert for hypnotherapy, which differs from (brilliant) papers like The Spark as The Spark only has holistic therapies and eco-products and spiritual events in their adverts.
I've come up with two possible designs for a front page, this one sticks with the conventional newspaper front page, for example, it is partially modelled on the old Evening Post and holds typical features such as a large headline and a smaller headline, jump lines, by-lines, ears et. cetera. I feel this would appeal to a larger audience, the traditional layout would appeal to more mature audience, the colour to a younger. The colours would also be fairly neutral, i.e. - not pink or blue, typically gender assigned colours - so that it does not appeal to just one gender. Ideology is also important, this is why one of the ears contains an advertisement for some editorial content in the paper on eco-friendly tips. This hopefully will let potential audience member know about what the producers views are without having to filter the news content to conform to a typically alternative view, for example, The Spark paper only gives news to do with global warming or human rights activists. This paper will have a higher level of this kind of news, but will also have general news (for example crime and school stories).
This is a layout for the inside debates page. A convention that local newspapers often have is a page where local people share their opinions on a particular subject. I drew the idea of two columnists writing their opinions on each side of the debate from studying Grazia magazine in AS. I thought adding this to a local newspaper would perhaps slightly modernise the genre whilst appealing to a wider audience, for example, not just people in an older demographic who have more concern with the community but perhaps a younger demographic. This may be able to challenge the stereotypical representation that young people don't care very much about anything apart from drinking or vandalising, especially if they are seen in the paper sharing their opinion, even more so if it is a valid argument.
This is the second of my front page layouts. This one subverts some of the conventions of a traditional local newspaper, which I like. Often people don't read newspapers because they assume they are boring, this may attract a younger demographic, perhaps not anybody under eighteen but perhaps people in the 20 - 30 age range. This would have more colour than the other layout, particularly in the masthead and ears. Additionally, this gives precedence to the content of the paper, rather than to which paper it is and whatever award they've won. Despite this, I feel that it is a little blocky - everything is organised inside a box, a little like Tetris - and that it does not flow as well as the other front page layout.
This is a generic layout for a double page spread.
On the left there is a main story surrounded by four news-in-brief sections. On the right there are two stories, one will be on crime and the other about a charity event. I've noticed that local newspapers often mix up different types of stories on one page, again because they want to appeal to a range of niche audiences. In my newspaper, it would be divided up into different sections, identifiable not by a large contents page but by different categories at the tops of the page, for example; news, debates, you ( the reader), fashion and home, interviews, horoscopes and puzzles, jobs, classified, et.c.
