Before we plan our newspaper, website and poster, we as a group have made a questionnaire for people to fill out. This will determine who our target audience is and what they require in a local newspaper.

We have used a number of different methods to obtain results, such as using social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) as well as the tradition survey to members of the public on the street.

What age group do you fall into?1-1819-25 26-35 36-47

48-59 60-70 71+

What gender are you?

MaleFemale

Are you a frequent reader of ‘national newspapers’?

Yes No

Are you a frequent reader of ‘local newspapers’?

Yes No

What section of the ‘local newspaper’ do you enjoy reading? Or use the paper for?

News Job Hunting House Hunting

Other_________ (Please State the section)

How many local newspapers are handed out to you in your borough?

One Two

More than Two_________ (Please State the Number)

How many of these local newspapers are free?

One Two All_________ (Please State the Number)

If one or more local newspapers aren’t free, how much do you have to pay for them?

1p-50p 51p-£1 £1.01-£2 £2+

Are you computer literate?

No Yes

Do you ever use the online facilities, such as the E-editions, of local newspapers?

No Yes________ (Please State the facility you use)

Would you find an ‘App’ for your mobile or a Text message service any useful?

No Yes

7 - If local newspapers cost in your area, how much do you have to pay for them?

18

21

10

11p-50p

51p-£1

£1.01-£2

£2+

8 - Are You computer literate?

38

12

05

10152025303540

Yes No

People

9 - Do you ever use the online facilities, such as the E-editions, of local newspapers?

19

31

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Yes No

People

10 - Would you find an ‘App’ for your mobile or a Text message service any

useful?

15

35

05

10152025303540

Yes No

People

11 - What political party do you align yourself with?

18

21

10

1

1p-50p

51p-£1

£1.01-£2

£2+

Labour

Conservative

Lib-Dem

Other

From the results gathered from our questionnaire, we will:

Try to aim our products at 26-35 year olds, however will also try to appeal to other age groups.

Aim our products at both genders as the results we attained were fairly 50 – 50.

Emulate national newspaper styles and conventions, as they are popular among our demographic.

Create a more hyper-local style of news as local news isn’t as appealing enough.

Focus of news articles more than any other area, as this is more requested as seen in our questionnaire.

Make our newspaper free as there is already competition within our area, therefore people wouldn’t want to spend on local papers when they can get it for free.

Charge a cover price of 51p-£1, were the paper is sold at local news agents.

Have an accompanied website to go along with the newspaper.

Create an online edition of our newspaper to allow our computer literate readers to access.

Also create an application for mobile devices, even though these are more normally associated with the national press.

Not align ourselves with any political party as there is clearly no dominant party.

For the front cover of our local newspaper we will try to create a cover that:

Follows the conventions of existing local newspapers. This is so that people can identify that our newspaper is a local paper.

Has an ‘edge’ to it, making it new and interesting for the target market/readership. This is because our local newspaper will be competing with existing local papers.

Has a clean and simple layout, we will achieve this by setting out our articles in columns, just like conventional papers. Our paper will predominantly feature the colour green as this helps represent the Enfield area and so the target audience in turn. The font also clear and attractive, which helps to follow the clean and simple layout.

Has a U.S.P (Unique selling point). Our U.S.P is that our publication will be more than just a paper and as we will have a brand identity.

That is different to existing papers, as it will not be dominated by adverts. This will be achieved by limiting the number of advertising space on the cover. Even though advertising is the main source of revenue, we as a group felt it was more important to showcase that our local newspaper is going for a professional look and we felt that the adverting brought the quality of the paper down. This also ties in with the points I have made about the clean and simply layout.

Will include an image to go hand in hand with the articles featured. This will breakdown the page so that people aren’t intimidated with the amount of text. Also the images will help people identify, as the images will be of people of local residents and local landmarks.

Will include an appropriate article, this is so that the news values for our paper and existing papers are similar. We will include stories that our audience want to read about, such as road conditions, and other local issues.

An article will go in the grey boxes.

An advert will go in the

brown boxes.

This is were the date of the paper will go

This is were the web

address will go

This is were the image would go

For my second page of my local newspaper, we will:

Have around two articles, this will give us the opportunity to show what type of news stories would generally be included in local papers. Also it is the usual number of articles you’d expect to find on that page.

Will include the date and page number at the top of the page, this is for the obvious reason so that people can navigate from page to page easily.

Have an editorial section on the page, this is so that people can see who the reporters of the paper are (usually local papers have very few reporters). we thought it was best to put it at the front instead of the back, as local (& nationwide) newspapers are known for having a sports, jobs or advertising section there.

Include advertisements, this is because adverts are the main source of income for papers, especially local newspapers as they are often given away for free, therefore adverts will need to be included.

Continue the font colour and type we have been using throughout the paper, otherwise it will look weird.

For the three hyperlinked pages, we will:

Select an appropriate design for our newspaper website and carry through that design on all my pages. This is because if I was a reader visiting the website and the design drastically changed from on page to another I would assume that it no longer was the same website and some sort of pop out.

Include the same news values my newspaper includes. This is because the reader would expect the same types of articles to feature on the website as they do in the paper.

Include interactive content, such as videos, blog and forums. These types of media interacts with the reader and is an expansion of the paper itself, which can not include videos or “have your say” sections.

As we have highlighted in our ‘Research’ the BBC and Guardian website were amongst the most visited news sites in the U.K. Therefore we will borrow elements from each as well as introducing new and different aspects. We will do this as we wish to tap into their successes but on a local level.

For my poster, we will:

Have a simple design which isn’t too cluttered making it easy to understand. This is because posters are used in locations were people are busy and on the go and if they poster isn’t easy to understand people can’t afford to stop to try work out what poster is saying/adverting.

Try to make it look professional, the risk with trying to create a simple design is that it doesn’t always work and ends up looking awful. Therefore to ensure this doesn’t happen I will have to carefully choose which images and fonts I use.

Include images of the local area. This is so that people can identify with the local area and our paper.

Continue using the fonts, colours and the logo that we have decided to use for our other product range. This will create a sense of brand identity.

In our group we all sat down do discuss possible names for our publication. As we live in ‘Enfield’ we knew that ‘Enfield’ would be in the title, we then came up with the follow ideas:

1. Enfield Echo2. Enfield Extra3. Enfield Star

We chose to come up with these possible titles for our paper. For example we decided as “Enfield Echo” as a possible title as this connotes the idea of spreading the news by word of mouth. We decided on “Enfield Extra” as it connotes the idea of giving the reader extra news. Our final possible title we decided on was “Enfield Star”, we thought of this as a possibility, as the title follows conventions to existing local paper names.

We particularly liked “Enfield Extra” and “Enfield Echo” due to the alliterative nature.

We decided that ‘Enfield Extra’ was best, as the name connotes that the paper is an essential part of living in ‘Enfield’ and gives you Extra news.

We wanted a unique font to use on our newspaper, website and poster so we took to the internets in search for some fonts and cut them down to the following:

Enfield Extra Enfield Extra

We chose this “ “ font as it was simple yet contemporary. The logo will represent our brand, both online and in print.

Due to political reasons we decided not to use reds, blues or yellows as we have decided that we would like our publication to be politically independent, so as not to alienate a group or groups of our readership. This is particularly important in the Enfield area as, there is no dominant ideology. Therefore we chose green as a politically neutral colour.

We chose ‘Arial’ as it is an easy to read and clear font. We also decided to go against conventions as use ‘Arial’ as opposed to the ‘industry standard’ ‘Times New Roman’. On a subliminal level the audience will be able to tell that we differ to other existing papers on the market. We will continue to use this font across all of our products, including the website and poster.

Arial Verdana Times New Roman