Creating images for my banner

The last thing to finish on my inside page is the 'Inside...' banner at the top of the page. I plan to use two or three images with a headline and a small description of the article. I am going to use my front page story, and two other stories that I haven't decided on yet.


To make it look professional, I would like to cut the subjects of my images out, so the banner is the background. I am going to use the pen tool in Photoshop to create a path as I found that last year this is the neatest method. 


Original Image:

Looking at the image here, it also needs brightening, so I will do this when I cut Alice out.


Cut out Image:

Banner:

Inside Cover Progress

I have cropped my image and added it to my inside cover. I wanted to keep the dimensions of my image proportional to the original image, and I had a gap to fill between the article and the image, so I wrote a caption. I am pleased with how it looks.

Inside Cover Main Image

I managed to take some photos of my local leisure centre over the weekend to use for my inside cover.

As all the images are dark I plan to enhance the brightness and contrast using Photoshop before uploading to my inside cover. 

I prefer the blue of the skies in the two images on the left, but I think the image at the bottom is the best image, as the sky and the car park frame the leisure centre well. I juxtaposed   a car and some bikes into the image to reinforce to the reader that the leisure centre is actively used
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Here is the edited version of my image. I have increased the brightness and slightly lowered the contrast and I think the finished image is much more successful than the original.

Inside Page

This lesson I have managed to finish writing the article for my inside page. I am pleased with how I have structured the information, I think it emulates the sorts of features that can be found in local newspapers. I have put the opening few words in capitals, as this is commonly done in articles, and have added quotes from opposing sides of the argument.

I have used the articles I previously researched as inspiration for my story, and asked a few people in my media class, and my parents to read it and suggest improvements. Here is the inside cover so far. I hope to take some images to use for my main photo and the banner at the top over the weekend.

Finished Weather Report

I have spent the beginning of the lesson finishing off my weather report. I am happy with how it looks, as I think it follows the conventions of other local newspapers and is in keeping with the colour scheme and fonts on my cover. 

Creating the weather report

Local newspapers often have weather, sailing, sunrise and sunset statistics on the inside cover. For example, in the edition of the News I have been studying:

I have decided to create a similar one for mine. I will use these weather images which I found using Google Images from http://www.webdesign-guru.co.uk/icon/wp-content/uploads/weather.png  

I will continue with the weather report next lesson. This is my inside page so far:

Inside Cover Flat Plan

I have studied this inside page of an edition of the news for inspiration...

...and  have started creating the inside page for my newspaper. I found organising my layout into boxes really useful when creating my cover as I had planned out where to place everything. 

I will be working on my weather section today, as this has quite a lot of detail and I haven't managed to take my main image yet.

Article

I have been researching articles based around closures of leisure and community centres for inspiration. Online articles I have found include:

'Anger over plans to shut Meir education centre'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-11773385 

'Plans for pool closure confirmed' 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/8141906.stm 

'Day centre closures to be debated'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10218162 

I will begin writing my article after I have taken an image to use.

Beginning Inside Cover

As my main task is finished, I am going to begin the inside page of my newspaper. I have decided to use the secondary article from my front page for the article on the inside cover. Most inside pages don't feature the main article from the front page - probably because if people flick through the newspaper in the shop its better if there are a few different stories to catch their eye, so I avoided this in my work. 


I have begun to draw up a flatplan of how I would like my inside page to be set out. I plan to take some photos of my local leisure centre to use as an image for this story over the weekend before next lesson. 

Finished Front Page

I have completed my front page and I'm really happy with the way it looks. I thought my front page featured a lot of sport and was therefore quite male orientated, so I discussed what other adverts I could include with my lecturer to avoid this. We discussed that because my model is female, it isn't too masculine. I added an advert for 20% off at Frankie and Benny's, which is located in Gunwharf Quays, as I thought this is reasonably female orientated. 


Here is my finished design:

Work Over Christmas

Over the holidays I have managed to write up the article for my lead piece and decided to create an advert for a TV guide inside. The text for my article has been inspired by the stories of sporting success I researched earlier in the year, and by other articles written in the News over the past few weeks. I have found that the article on the cover is often short and simple, but conveys the basic information about the story. The idea of the text is to make people want to read about the article inside the newspaper.


"A LOCAL TEENAGER has been tipped as ‘a star in the making’ following remarkable success in the British Figure Skating Championships.
Alice Lording, 14, who ice skates at Gosport Ice Rink has become the youngest ever winner of a solo British Championships, beating 16 other competitors to bring home the gold medal."