Front covers

The colours for this newspaper are quite simple as they have used the conventional amount of 3 main colours – white, black and red. I think that they have used the black colour for the text as black is a lot easier to read and especially with it being used for a newspaper there is a lot more text in a newspaper than a poster and so you want to want to appeal to your audience and you want to keep them interested in your product for as long as possible.The layout for this newspaper has a lot of borders around this which helps to keep everything separate and also helps the reader know when one story ends and another one begins. They have used a black line to underline the masthead and to add little elements of date, and temperatures.I like that the main story takes up most of the page as this is what a main head line should be however the layout of the main story I would have changed as I would like to have a few more stories along both the left and right of the main story as I think symmetry sometimes makes things a little better to look at.The text they have gone for is simple and they have opted to go without the curls and tails and this is the conventional thing to do as tails and curls are harder to read and you want your audience to read the whole of your product and so by not putting funky font the reader will hopefully read all of my product.I like that the newspaper has opted to use a multiple amount of images as this will also appeal to your audience as using images it will grab peoples attention of readers walking past as well as big pull-quotes.

This is a small clipping from the ‘i’ newspaper and as you can see from the front page of the newspaper the target audience for this newspaper is definitely more dominantly older people as they show a political party as the main article for the page, which is a subject that older people want to read about and learn about what is going to happen to the country whether that be ‘free lunches’ or family vote’.

I think that the newspaper's unique selling point is that it is an informative newspaper for an older audience generally more geared towards politics but trying to pass it of a being a friendly newspaper as they also have other articles surrounding the main article that could interest a lot of different people as you have sport underneath, an article about the NHS, Stephen Hawkins backing assisted suicide, Britain workaholic culture ‘Is harming the economy’ and gaming ‘Grand Theft Auto’.

This newspaper in my opinion is very image lead as the images are much bigger than the actual text underneath and this is the front page and newspaper’s should do there best to appeal to their audience and obviously this is what is going to appeal to their audience.

The imagery that they have used to go along side these articles are very much the focus of the front page and you can see from the main image they want to show a friendly relationship towards the audience.

‘i’ has used bold colours when it comes to the colour palette of the newspaper as they have gone for a red masthead colour and then they have used dark greens and blue/teal colours for the background and colouring of text. I think that this design is something to think about when it comes to my design as the bold colours along side big images help not only to highlight something but also as they have used three colours they are also giving a colour co-ordinated structure to the newspaper which is something I think reader’s may not initially realise but will help a lot when defining articles.

I am in mixed mines of whether I like the layout of the newspaper as I like that they have placed the main article in the centre of the page and then put articles around it however with the amount images and articles they are using I can’t help but feel that it is starting to look a little claustrophobic on the page. They have ordered the articles by giving a thin line between each and have even got colour co-ordinating backgrounds to show the beginning and ending of an article. But for the front page I do think you need to put a lot on the front to make the readers attracted to at least one article you have on the front page and that can be a hard job to do if you only have a small selection of articles on the front of the page.

This is another ‘i’ front cover, the layout of this newspaper is completely different to the previous layout as this newspaper front cover has approximately 8 small articles on the front cover including the masthead and although this is only 1 less article than the previous it feels a lot more spaced out and not as cluttered and I thin the reason for this is because there are not a lot of images as there are only 3 images on the page if you include the image of the crossword at the bottom of the page.

Unfortunately I don’t particularly like this layout either as although there is less on the page I still feel it looks cluttered and I have came to the conclusion that it is the big black background in the centre of the page as they used a big image in the same size image on the other page and I think that without this it would look less cluttered however I do wonder that if this were not there what would be the focus point?

The colours they have kept the same on this front cover and I like that they are keeping the continuity in something they are producing as the bold colours are something that attracts your eye when reading from article to article.

Like the previous front cover I think that this front cover has a political edge as they have both used a big sized image of a political person.

In connection with the images and text on the front cover I would have to say that it is not image or text lead as the newspaper has used a mixture of both big images and big text.

Inside pages

LayoutAs I don’t read the i newspaper I am not accustomed to the layout to the layout however I do feel that it is very structured in appearance as the columns from the article have clean lines, the images used in the newspaper also have clean lines as they line up with each other and with the two images the article underneath the lines follow structurally also. I particularly like that they have used a red line at the top of the page so that all the images, articles and advertisement start at the same point. ColourI really like the colour palette style they have used as they have used red, black and white however comparing this colour palette back to the Sunderland Echo newspaper it is completely different as they use the black to section off different parts of the page. I prefer the i newspaper layout in this particular instance as they have used the red to pick out different parts of each article and image as well as red text for the headings. ContentThe content for this newspaper is generally more political newspaper and this is something that sets them above the rest of other newspaper as they specialize in one particular area of media – niche.Audience AppealI really like that the newspaper has tried to appeal to the website audience as they have used the same style as the website with the headings and they have even highlighted the ‘NEWS’ heading just like it would be on the website.They have tried to appeal to their audience by using 3 different articles and have even added a ‘comment’ attached to one of the articles to appeal to mostly the younger audience but also to give interaction between the reader and the writer to give the impression that the newspaper care about what people think. When looking at the content of this newspaper I have realized that they have used a lot more text content than image content and I feel that they have done this to appeal to the audience as looking at the newspaper I would think that the target audience for this newspaper would be higher class and more politically interested and they have only used a small amount of images to break up text rather than just to appeal to the audience like other newspapers would do for example the Sunderland Echo.Image The images the newspaper has used are quite important as they have used iconic or well known people or places which makes me think have they done this to appeal the audience into reading the rest of the article as most people will want to know about these things. I quite like that they have used a circular image of Barack Obama which illustrates the point I made earlier that they are more text lead as they have made good use of the space by making this a circular image.

i newspaper

i newspaperThis is the inside page of the ‘i’ newspaper and it again follows the same cluttered look as the front page and although the newspaper has all the elements it needs to look structured it somehow to me looks cluttered, as they have the different coloured backgrounds to show the cut off points between each story, they have also used bold font at the beginning of each story, they have kept to a colour scheme for that one page however this is different from the front page as the front page included green and blue/teal colours. I like the colours they have used on this page as it fits in with the colour tone of the masthead and feel that this some how fits better but I do prefer the front page as the bold colours gave a more eye catching page than the this one.

Another thing that I like about this page is that most time if not every time the letter ‘i’ is used on the page they use the masthead which although is something small I do feel that this is a fun and quirky element that the newspaper has done to reiterate to readers what newspaper they are reading from.

The layout of this is a very conventional newspaper form as there a defined columns however fro me it seems like there is a lot to take in for the inside page but yet again you still need to have enough content to keep readers interested.

Again they have only used three images and I think that it is too text lead for my liking and if they were to have used a few more images to space things out I imagine that this would look a lot better and it would certainly appeal more to me.

i newspaper

This is again another layout change and I don’t understand if its because it’s a new newspaper and it is still trying to work out which layout work best for them but from a media students perspective they don’t seem to be giving their reader’s continuity from one edition to the next.

There are 11 images on the page and yet the page still feels text lead as the images are quite small and the images are only there to illustrate the text beside it, although a media convention, it doesn’t seem to be used to break the text up to stop the reader from getting lost in all the articles.

The content itself seems to have a mix of different article to again keep reader’s happy as they have things ranging from convictions to career changes.

Again the newspaper seems to like some conventions they have used previously as they still bold font at the beginning of every article to show obviously when one article ends and another begins. However they have stopped with the background and the different coloured shading behind the text and although it makes the newspaper look slightly more sophisticated I think the coloured backgrounds broke the page up a little and helped the eye to highlight different areas of interest according to the colours.

i newspaper

This is another ‘i’ newspaper inside page and I have noticed that in every single one of their inside pages they have used a strip down the left hand side which is a sort of cut off from the rest of the articles as this particular page contains internet sites, cats going to space and places to go in the city. These things are not particularly less important than the other stories however as they are following the conventional layout by putting this strip on every edition I have research I think they have placed the articles there to conform with the layout.

One thing that I particularly like about this page above the rest of the other pages is that there are certain features on the page that don’t normally get used in other newspapers, it is often said in the use but not always seen in newspapers which is something I liked because when reading it makes you think you are somehow reading the television news all because of 4 word’ And in other news…’ I have noticed other little features along with the ‘and in other news’ and the ’i’ being dotted around I like the small headings at the top of each article to label what each article is going to be about so that reader’s don’t actually have to read the article to have an insight as to what it is about.

They have again used the colouring for the background for the text and I have grown to like this element as it patricians the articles.

Another thing that I have noticed on the second inside page is that they tend to have a long shot of a person to the left of the page which gives the eye something to look at each time you have finished an article and this is something I think is a good idea to have as you don’t want to bore the reader with just text and if you are going to have minimal amount of images in your newspaper you should make the most of what images you do have.