Courtney Day

Factual Page Layout Evaluation

For this project every piece of production was created on time. I worked at a pace that meant I didn’t fall behind and could quickly and smoothly move on to the next production task. As the broadsheet layout basically stuck to a clean and clear layout that was easily recognisable through guides this was the quickest one to complete. I managed to create three versions of my broadsheet and I was able to experiment with different layouts and guides. The tabloid however, did take longer to produce compared to the broadsheet. It took me more time to create new layouts, which were a lot busier than the broadsheet layouts. It took me longer to create layouts and designs, which worked well with having so much on one page. I wanted to create something that looked as professional as the examples I had looked at during the planning the process and this are what I found difficulty in. The fanzine also didn’t take me longer than the time that I had to complete it. I was able to be really creative with the fanzine. There were no layouts or guides for me to follow and I was able to make something purely from inspiration and imagination. I was able to create two versions of my fanzine, one better than the other. I completed the broadsheet, tabloid and fanzine in the time frame that I aimed for, which was the deadline. I managed to complete all three pieces of production within the time if not before. I think if I had found more difficulty with the tabloid than what I did I would not have completed it in this time. Over the time of the course my time management skills have not been my strongest area and it has needed a lot of work over these two years. I think within this second year I have improved massively on managing to get tasks in on the deadline and finish tasks at a good pace, compared to other projects such as the recipe card project, which still needs tasks to be completed and handed in.

Reviewing my work during this whole project meant that I could look back and change anything that didn’t look great. It also meant that if I did change anything and down the line decided I didn’t like it as much or deleted something I could look back see what I can do to change it back again. I kept track throughout the production process of what looked good and what looked best where etc. If I did this in the broadsheet layout I could apply some of the things I liked to the tabloid. I feel I could of done this a lot better by making sure I was taking screenshots for every task. This could have meant that I could of looked at my work in broken down sections. If I did this for my tabloid task I could have been able to see where I was going wrong and what wasn’t making it look professional, like I wanted it to. Doing this is something that I have always struggled with. I have never remembered to take screenshots or review my work as I go. Not only have I struggled to do it with this project but I also struggled to do this throughout the design for advertising project.

For this project and in particular the broadsheet and tabloid pieces, we used Indesign, a programme that I have never used before. Unlike Photoshop, the programme we have used throughout the whole two-year course, there isn’t a lot I learnt to do on the graphic side of things. I did however learn how to work with text in ways Photoshop can’t do. I learnt to wrap text around photos and pictures and put text into equal columns. Indesign helped me to create clear guides to work to. It helped me to put text in where I wanted and make all the text on the page the same size and in even amounts. This applies especially for the broadsheet. The broad sheet needed a lot of guides. I had to decide how many rows and how many columns, how I was going to fit a masthead, numerous headlines, body copy and images on a page and evenly fit them in the guides and margins. Comparing the fanzine to the broadsheet, the broadsheet is a lot more technical. It

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required order, clarity and symmetry whereas the fanzine required creativity more than anything else. For all three of my tasks I think I have used good quality images. As my broadsheet article was written as if I was a reporter from that time I had to make my broadsheet look as though it was from that time. The images I have used I feel are appropriate for writing in that time. They are obviously not of as good quality as if I was writing in the present tense. I think I did well in finding the best quality images and making them fit in the sizes that I needed them. I think I could of improved on this by editing any low quality images that I was using in Photoshop to try and make them look as good as possible. I used black and white images as this fitted better with the time era. It also helped to hide anything that was low quality. My tabloid images could of possibly been a little better, but this was also down to resizing them in Photoshop in order to make them fit within the guides. This is something I could have improved on, either by finding better quality images or making sure they fit in the size requirements that I needed. I tried to avoid making them look blurred and out of focus as much as possible by cropping etc. Some of the images I used in the fanzine were of bad quality but they were prefect for what I had visualised in my mind. It was hard for me to find images of a good quality due to most photo’s of hippies will have been from five decades ago, meaning their camera quality will not of been as good as they are today. To improve of this I could have used more modern pictures of recreations of the hippy era and edited them in Photoshop to make them look older. As fanzines from the 60’s would have been all homemade and handmade I thought I could go with lower quality images and make them work. I used a filter on these images to make them look as though they had been painted. This worked perfectly with the handmade look on both good quality and bad quality images. I think this effect on the fanzine would of worked better if I made everything else around it look handmade and add more features to it to make it look handmade, elements such as the text and other images.

Overall I think my broadsheet is the most professional looking piece of work. I think everything fits well within the guides and it looks clean. It isn’t cluttered and uses the write type of language, perfect for the typical audience of a broadsheet audience. I think the use of small elements helps to make my final broadsheet look professional, elements such as the red line above the masthead. This is only something small, and nothing like a necessity but I think it adds a finishing touch to the final product. The straight line shows that this is a more serious newspaper than a tabloid and also adds a bit of colour to what could have been a boring broadsheet in simple black and white. I also think it adds a modern twist to something that I was trying to create from the past. The layout overall I think helps to add to how professional the finished piece looks. Everything is clean and clear and looks as though it is in order. Things such as the spacing between everything helped to create this. There is just enough space to see that everything that needs to be separate is separate to each other. If I were to change anything about my finished broadsheet to make it look more professional would be to change the font slightly. With the font that I downloaded I was able to make it have the effect, which it has on my finished product or just plain black. If I could go back I would make just plain black. Looking back I think the effect really makes the overall look of the broadsheet seem less professional and more like I have drawn the font myself. I thought that this look would work well with the era I was writing in. I think the plain black would make it stand out a lot more and also make it look a lot more professional.

I think I struggled the most in trying to make my tabloid look professional. The tabloid had to include a lot more elements than the broadsheet. I needed to include more fonts, more

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images, more colours, more text and more expression over all. It was hard for me to figure how I was going to put all this onto one front cover and how I could make it look cluttered but a professional looking cluttered. I think I did make this finished product look as professional as I could. I think I achieved this through many elements and effects. For starters the red block of colour at the top goes well with the masthead. When I was in the production of the tabloid my original idea was to go with a blue background rather than red. I thought the blue would work well by catching the eye and standing out from any other tabloids that are on the market. I soon found that this didn’t work as well as I thought it would. The colour I originally wanted to work with seemed to bright and didn’t work well with the white or black text as well as the red did. Another element that works well with my work is the use of the block of black with the main headline and image. This is something that most tabloids use and I think it works well with my main headline and image. However, I do think there are certain things that I could change that would make that part of my tabloid look a lot better. The use of white text boxes to highlight part of the story and pull quotes I think was a good decision. It helped me to fit information on with the main headline and also draw attention. I also think this looks like something a professional tabloid would you. However, I do think I could of made them look better. For one I could of smoothed the edges and corners so the squares weren’t so sharp. I think this would make the whole look for the main story look a lot smoother and more relaxed, something I should of taken into consideration when I was producing my tabloid. I also think I could of found a better image to use. Although the image is of a good quality and works well with the main headline I think I should of used one that didn’t cut her head out on a straight line. I think this lowers the quality of the image and the whole sections overall look. If I were to do this again I would find a full image to try and avoid this. I think the image choice in other stories is good. I think the image of Russel Brand works well with the headline and the tabloid. The image is something that the audience will not take seriously, something that a comedian may get his whole life. I think the image choice also helps to sway the opinions of the story. As the headline is quite a serious statement but the image to go with it isn’t, I think it may make people think that it isn’t a serious as it is. I think this could of worked better if the headline wasn’t as serious. By using language like slang and abbreviations to really sway the opinions of the audience. If I had used a serious image with a serious headline the audience will be more likely to take the whole story seriously. I also think that highlighting the cost of the tabloid makes it look professional. Tabloids are more likely to emphasize the cheap price in order to get sales. I think I could of made this look better by making it look bigger and adding an effect such as a glow or stroke to make it really stand out. I also think the use of images in a circle shape works well against the normal square images. It helps it to stand out and gives my finished product a more tabloid look overall. It draws the attention to the stories that a tabloid audience are more interested in.

My fanzine I think looks as professional as it possibly could. This is another product I found hard to make it look professional, as there was so much you could do and no guides to work to. I decided that my unprofessional, handmade work looked a lot better than something would be ordered and clear looking. I wanted to create the scrapbook look and this included a lot of images. However, I do think that if my fanzine wasn’t as busy and included more of a title it would look better and of a higher standard. The second page of my fanzine I think looked more professional than the front cover. It was set out in a more clear way and was easy to look at. It still had the scrapbook look which I was aiming for, without being overly busy and cluttered. I do think that the title on the second page may of looked better if the surrounding daisies were removed. I think that if they weren’t there it would look more professional yet still keep the scrapbook/handmade look. I think the front

Courtney Day

cover of the fanzine would of looked better if I stuck to one font colour throughout. As I wanted to stick to the hippie look when creating my fanzine I thought of lots of colours and fonts would be suitable. I then went on to use a mixture of blue, pink and orange for all the text on the front cover. I think if I had stuck to just the one colour it would look a lot more clean and professional.

I feel as though this project has enabled my creative abilities to be broadened a lot, especially when compared to other tasks and projects we have done throughout the two years. This project has allowed me to be as creative as possible as this is the first design project which we have made anything like this. The broadsheet let me get creative with guides and more professional layouts. I was able to be creative with the typography, layouts, what looked best where, what layouts worked best and images. For example I needed to be really specific with the guides and layouts, something I have never really never worked with. It allowed me to make sure I was creative enough to make sure I fit the text and images together well with no overlaps. I got to be particularly creative when it came to the typography and what fonts would work best for the style of broadsheet, which font is more suitable for the audience and which generally worked best with everything else and whether it fit. It was hard to find a font that looked serious and professional as well as work well and catch the attention of the audience. It was also hard to make sure the size and the placement of the text, particularly the masthead, worked well and looked even compared to the page. It required a lot of alignment change as well as size and placement. The broadsheet did let me expand my creativity when it came to working with guides and strict requirements but this also limited my creativity. There was no need for an eye catching fancy font, unlike the recipe card project where there was no limit to how creative you could be. There was no need for much colour either so I was stuck to one, professional looking font and basic colours.

The tabloid design allowed me to get more creative than what I was able to be with the broadsheet. This required me to expand guides that I was using in order to put more stuff on to the cover. I particularly had to be more creative with the placement of elements on the page and fonts. I was able to experiment with using different shapes for images and text, elements such as the circles on images to highlight something that isn’t in the main image and the boxes of text to highlight pull quotes. I was also able to experiment with moving outside the guides and having bigger images and text. This helped me to gain knowledge in creating something that looked professional without have guides there to really tell you where to put stuff. The font allowed me to be creative. I had to find something that wasn’t over the top and in your face but also something that wasn’t as formal as the broadsheet. I experimented with block letters, italics, sans serif and serif fonts. My main influence for my tabloid was the ones that already exist on the market, particularly The Sun. Their font is very informal without being too in your face. I think my font could of looked better if I used it in italics rather than keeping it straight.

The fanzine was the design that I could get the most creative with. There were no guides or templates that were there to follow and all the design was mainly down to me. The fanzine allowed me to be really creative with fonts, images, colour, placement and editing. In this project I got really creative with the placement of images and the editing of them. I wanted my fanzine to look like a scrapbook and I think I achieved this by experimenting with the filter gallery, something I haven’t really looked at since the first project, graphic narrative. It also allowed me to use the rotoscope effect, another tool that I haven’t really looked at since the graphic narrative project and the recipe card project. The fanzine also

Courtney Day

allowed me to experiment with where I placed the images on the page. As I wanted the fanzine to have a scrapbook look, it will naturally look cluttered. I was able to be creative in making it look cluttered but also readable. I think I could have been more creative however with the fonts. I could of drawn my own, rather than settling, as I couldn’t really find the perfect font for a hippy fanzine. I could of also experimented with the main body font. I used a simple serif font. I think the font works overall but I could of maybe been slightly more creative and looked at some fonts that would work with the scrapbook theme.

Within all three tasks I believe I have achieved what I set out to do. I set out to create a broadsheet cover; a more professional looking piece of work, a tabloid cover; a newspaper that covers more gossip stories and has a less formal look than the broadsheet and a two pages of a fanzine; the cover and a page with my own fanzine article, this didn’t really have any requirements and I could do what I wanted with it. I think this is what I have achieved throughout all three tasks. My broadsheet is something that I personally feel I have achieved the most in. It follows clear guides and looks clear and formal. I wanted to create something that looked as formal and set out just as existing products look. I think I managed to achieve this look by using formal and serif fonts. I used clear columns and less images than what would be used on a tabloid; something that would usually be seen on broadsheet newspapers. I think I could of achieved this look a lot more if I paid closer attention to small details like making sure everything was in line and level. Pieces such as the competition information, the smaller Walt Disney headline at the top and the page number at the bottom of the main headline. If these were more in line I think everything would of come together a lot more smoothly.

With my tabloid design I think I could of done a lot more to create something that looks professional. My peer mentioned that the Russell Brand article columns were to sparse and that this ruins the look of the article. I think that I could of improved on this, maybe by changing the width of the column or only having one column. I do think that the addition of this to my design does help to create a more professional looking piece of work. It leaves little room for whitespace and the picture looks like something you would see on any existing tabloids. Overall I think adding more to my tabloid would of made it look better. Tabloids that I looked at during the research part of the project all seemed to be really busy and fit a lot of information onto the page, more than I have. I think mine could use more adverts to help get rid of any spaces on the page.

The fanzine I feel is something I also managed to achieve a lot in. I wanted to create a messy yet clear looking fanzine that resembled the look of a scrapbook. I created a front cover and a page for the article and I think this works well, my peer also thought this and I agree. It allowed me to make something that looked cluttered and over the top but also make my actual article clear and easy to read. As well as making my front cover look messy and look like a scrapbook I also wanted this theme to flow through onto the article page. I think I achieved this by using white strips to resemble the look of the text being cut out and stuck in. When I received my peer feedback I found that they agreed with this, they also mentioned about the use of more images to go along with the text. I think if I had added a few more images, images which were related to what was happening in the text, it would of added more of a scrapbook, over the top look as well as keeping it clear and easy to read.

When creating my layouts for specific audiences there were lots of elements that I needed to consider; the use of fonts, language, headlines, adverts, layout and colour. I tried to

Courtney Day

cater to each audience for each specific layout. My broadsheet layout was to be aimed at an audience that fell into the social grades C2, C1 and B. These will be people earning quite a bit of money of who have some or a lot of higher education. This audience will prefer more serious and professional stories compared to celebrity gossip and real life. I made my product appropriate for this audience by using stories that contain serious elements. The Joan Baez story may seem like celebrity gossip but the audience will be interested in the protest against the Vietnam War. Just as they will be interested in a speech a Dr. King would be making. I made these stories appeal to the audience by using more serious headlines. There is no use of slang or really emotive language. The headlines simply state what the audience will be interested in. The serif fonts that I used will also be appropriate for the audience as it makes the overall look that fonts create is formal and informative. In my peer feedback it said that I should of stuck to three fonts rather than a range of serif and sans serif fonts. I think this could of helped make my product appeal to this specific audience by sticking to a more formal and professional look. I wrote my headlines and article so it is suitable for a higher reading age this is something I feel is more appropriate for a broadsheet article. I also used less colour and less images. This keeps a clean, professional look something that the audience will be looking for. However I have used a bit of colour, a darkish, subtle red, making the look of the broadsheet stand out.

Compared to my broadsheet article my tabloid and fanzine are written for a much more informal audience. The audience of a tabloid can be any social grade from E, D and C2. They will have a lower reading age and will be much more interested in more relaxed stories, subjects such as celebrities. I tried to make my tabloid appeal to this type of audience by using a lot more informal and emotive language, something that I feel will appeal to an audience of a lower reading age. I have also placed a lot more on the cover and used less formal, san serif fonts. This makes the design more fun and interesting to look at, something I feel the audience will be looking for in a tabloid. I used images of celebrities and real life ‘shocking’ stories as well as using emotive language, not only in the headlines but also in the main body of text. I think if I were to make my tabloid appeal more to its audience I would place a lot more colour and images to attract their eye. Doing this would also make the tabloid more interesting to look at. I copied all this with the fanzine, something that will be bought by people interested in the specific subject of the fanzine. I used a lot of images, informal, decorative fonts and emotive language to appeal to an audience that will be truly interested in what I have written about. I have made my fanzine interesting to look at and eye catching, using fonts and images that directly related to what is written in the article or the fanzine itself. If I was to make the fanzine appeal to it’s audience more I think I would of chosen more specific images, images that really relate to the article and stuff people relate with hippies and the hippie era. Although my peer feedback let me know that this is what my fanzine does, I think a real audience would be confused as to what was in the article and why I chose to use these images.

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I used my own article for the main article on both broadsheet and tabloid as well as my own work on my fanzine. I used most of my article on the broadsheet, filing up space and allowing me to practise creating even columns. This was a good idea to go with as I was then able to direct the audience to which page it was continued. This would then get the audience to read on. This article was perfect for the broadsheet as the language was written formally, something that normally appears on other broadsheets such as The Guardian. I then used the same article for the tabloid. Due to the formality of the original article I changed it slightly and used pull quotes to use on the tabloid. This was a good idea to go with as it meant I did not bombarded a tabloid audience with information as well as allowing me to experiment with the space. I used stock images on all my layouts. For my broadsheet I decided to go with a black and white photo for my main image as I was writing as if I was from the sixties. I also think the black works well with the formal look and design of a broadsheet. However, I think a colour image may have made the layout look more professional. All the images I used on the tabloid are also stock images. This allowed me to experiment with stories and what went best with a tabloid. I did this for my fanzine also. If I were to do this project again I would try and see what images I could produce myself as it was hard to find images that fitted what I wanted to use. When using stock images, especially trying to find images from the 60’s and the hippie era, it was hard to find images that were of good quality. This was easy to overcome when working with the fanzine as I was able to edit them using the filter gallery in Photoshop and make them how I wanted, hiding the bad quality or making it look as though it was supposed to be that way. When working with the broadsheet and tabloid, it was harder to do this, especially when it came to resizing images through Indesign and Photoshop. I sometimes had to search for other images that were suitable or find a different story all together. This then took up a lot of time, especially when working on the tabloid.

Over the last two years, design skills have been an important part throughout. I think in this project my skills in Photoshop and now Indesign have been developed. Although I have been working with areas of Photoshop such as, layers, filters, rectangular marquee tool and many effects, I feel I have developed this skills a lot more. Compared to projects such as the graphic narrative project and the recipe cards I have used a lot more, especially for the fanzine, as well as working with Indesign. Indesign is something that I have never used before throughout the whole of this course and it has helped me to develop my skills when working with grids, layouts and placing text and image on a page as well as making everything fit and look even. It has helped to look at layouts in more detail and see which areas aren’t in place and where they should be moved. I feel as though I could have developed my Indesign skills more by using smaller and more precise grids. This maybe could have helped me to fit more and be more precise with my layouts, especially the tabloid layout. I have also developed my skills in finding fonts that are suitable for each design as well as knowing where they look best and what images they look best with. Indesign as helped me to do this by giving me measurements and guides when placing images on a page. This project has especially developed my skills in finding fonts as I have had to find three different styles; a formal, serif one, perfect for a broadsheet, a more relaxed, informal, sans serif fonts for my tabloid and something simply for design purposes but matches my fanzine genre. I have also had to find similar fonts for smaller headlines and body copy, all different from each other. I had to find fonts that were suitable for more formal layouts and language and the same for less formal layouts and language as well as one suitable for more design purposes. I think this could have been emphasised more if I

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had used a different for my tabloid design. I could of found one that wasn’t as basic as the one I decided to use.

My tabloid contained more areas that could have been improved compared to the fanzine and broadsheet layout. I feel as though I could of done a lot more if I worked with more specific guides. I feel as though my columns were affected from this, as I found out in the peer feedback, either them being too small or too wide leaving my layout looking uneven and messy. If I had used more specific guides and experiments with the size of the columns and rows then I could of seen which size text columns worked the best. I feel as though the amount of text used for the main title also could have been improved on. Other publications such as The sun don’t use a lot of information for their main headline and direct the audience to the page that the full story is on. This is what I tried to create with my own work but feel as though the effect and design I used looks lazy. This was also mentioned in my peer feedback. If I were to do this again I would choose to use only one box in order to give it a more professional look. I also needed to improve on the amount of content on my tabloid. I feel as though there wasn’t as much content as something like The Sun and that compared to mine The Sun had a lot more going on. Even though my layout had little whitespace I feel as though I could have added more elements to make the whole layout look busier.

Making my broadsheet look more professional by adding smaller details is something that could be improved on, details such as the amount of whitespace, fonts and reporter names. I feel as though there is too much whitespace below the main headline, improving this and lowering the amount of white space could of made everything come together more smoothly. Adding another smaller story or an advertisement could of filled up this space without making busy like a tabloid. My peer feedback mentioned that I used too many fonts. I feel as though if I had stuck to two or three fonts this will have made everything look more professional. I could have found three fonts that work well with the serious and less serious headlines and advertisements in order to make everything flow. Smaller details like a name to indicate who wrote the article would have made the layout look more like something on the market today, publications such as The Guardian.

My fanzine could have been made less busy in order to make everything clearer. I could of used fewer flowers on the first page and removed some of the stickers in order to make everything seem messy yet still clear as to what is going on. I also think I could of improved on the title. Making it bigger, brighter and clearer. This could of happened if I thought about putting the title on first rather than last as this meant I had to alter my original design. Making it brighter will have made it stand out a lot more and caught the eyes of the audience. I also think changing the font, as the bottom of the first page would have made an improvement. Although I wanted to create something that looked like it was from the hippie era I also wanted it to look professional and I personally think this font doesn’t fit the job. I feel as though it is too decorative and clashes with the already decorative title font. I think sticking to one font will have made it look better. My peer feedback mentioned using more images to break up the text on the second page. I feel as though this will have made the whole layout and design flow better. It will have also made reading the text more enjoyable if the audience could see what they were reading about.

Courtney Day