MAKING A LOGO/BANNER AND FOCUS GROUP

I have been making my banner and logo that will appear on my front page, website and billboard. The images are in order of my drafting, changed by the opinions of my focus group.

 

 

 When I first showed my focus group this image the general opinion was that it was bland and boring, they wanted an image to go along with it or some colour.



Working with their feedback, I added a picture of Ramsgate Harbour as the background. I then showed my focus group this image and some said they liked it, but others said that because it is only a image of Ramsgate, it may confuse some people as they may think that this is just Ramsgates local newspaper and not all of Thanet's.

With my focus group still not completely happy, I started again. I began to think of what would define Thanet and what image I could use that everyone would recognise and associate with where they live. My first thought was perhaps to merge all of the images I had of the harbours/peirs together, but when I attempted it it didn't look right at all, pretty horrific actually. So, I went back to the KM newspapers and saw that they had a simple logo with the name of the newspaper stacked on top of each other beside it. I went back to my focus group and asked them to shout out what they associated with where they live, many shouted out beaches and the harbours, but I had already tried and failed at that one, and then someone shouted out seaguls.
I took this idea and went onto paint and began to try and draw out some seaguls. I don't have much skill on paint, so I thought that a simple silhouette would be easier for me to draw using the computer. I tried out a few different ones, but the one that shows now is the one that I believed was better and more recognisable. I paired it with a blue background, the general colour associated with the sea and the sky, and boardered it with a dots to make it stand out and look a little different from normal logos. Folowing the conventions of KM, I stacked the name of my newspaper alongside it with the 'Herald' almost double the size of the the location.

I took this to my focus group and all were pleased with it. "The seagul is easy to recognise and I know the newspaper will be for somewhere on the coast without even reading the name".

FRONT PAGE SECOND AND THIRD DRAFT

I have changed the layout for my front cover as I think this looks better and more realistic to a newspaper. I am also following some of the conventions of KM newspapers and this  adheres to that
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BILLBOARD LAYOUT

Since none of the newspapers replied to my inquiry about whether they advertised their newspaper through billboards, and I couldn't find any for regional newspapers during my research, I have had to create my own.

So far, I have decided to go basic - The logo for the newspaper, a main headline and image, with contact details and info on where to get the newspaper and the website.

FIRST TWO PAGES OF NEWSPAPER LAYOUT

This shows the layout for the first two pages that are in my newspaper.
The black boxes mean that these will be images or advertisements, the 'x' is where text will be.

TUTORIALS: HOW TO USE WIX

 

 

I used this video to learn how to make a websit on WIX.

 

 

 

 

FIRST DRAFT OF FRONT COVER

 

This is just a basic layout and guidence for my front page. The 'x''s are where text will go, the different sizes determining whether it will be a heading or article text, and the boxes are images for stories or advertisements.

 

 

BILLBOARD UPDATE

It has been a few weeks now since I tried to get in contact with a few regional newspapers in order to see whether they used billboards for advetisement, what conventions they followed, if they could send me samples of what they looked like, etc.etc. and I have still not heard back. Because of this I am now going to have to create a completely original piece, perhaps looking at billboards advertising other things to gain inspiration.