The Masthead Of My Newspaper

The Masthead Of My Newspaper

For media course work i have to produce a local newspaper to the area i live in Porishead. Due to the fact that it will only include information that is relevant to portishead i feel that it is very important to make it clear to individuals that they would only get a select amount of news because if it isn't current to Portishead them it won't be included. To make this clear to people i have decided to Place Portishead in the name so readers are aware that the newspaper is  local.

Once deciding  the first half of the name i believed that individuals need to recognise that this newspaper was going to inform them of events in portishead.

I brainstormed some idea's down and was debating which one to choose.I defiantly new i did not want to use post because that would be my competitors name which could confuse customers. However i could not make mine own choice therefore i did a survey to find out which was the most popular name to go with Portishead.The results from the questionnaire showed one winner that got a third of the votes.  

From my research i found that Press is the most popular name with people in my street and consequently i have decided to use the name for my newspaper. The Portishead Press which i think with the alliteration makes the name have a bit of a rhyme and become more memorable.

THE PORTISHEAD PRESS 

 I have decide that i would like to add a symbol into my name somewhere that represents a bit of Portisheads history it needs to be something that every individual will be aware of so they understand the symbol. To start i have got to do some research into Portisheads history to see what i could use. In the history of Portishead there are three main factors that took a significant change to peoples lives here. 

The first to occur was they developed rapidly in the 19th century in transport infrastructure that allowed the docks to become a fishing port.

Later in the 20th century a power station and chemical works were

added to Portisheads business.It was later expanded and renamed    Portishead A Power Station and Portishead B Power Station opened in the early 1950s. Both power stations were coal-fired however Portishead B Power Station's had one-third of its boilers oil-fired and two thirds coal-fired. Both power stations were later converted to fully oil-fired operation.

Towards the  end of the 20th century they added a telephone control centre used by British telecoms(BT) for non-direct dialled calls to maritime vessels which was know as portishead radio.

 

Before doing the research the only event i was aware of was the power station because there are pictures put up around Portishead with the an image of Portishead with the power station. I did some further research and found a news report of when the power station was demolished in the late 1970s and early 1980s and found that it caused split attitudes through out portishead. Therefore i have chosen to use the power station as my symbol.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLFygH9418M



 The Symbol

Immediately i wondered how it would be possible to include the power station as my symbol and for the name still to be noticeable. I started by experimenting with some drawing so i could see whether it would be possible without looking to cluttered. I used the picture from earlier to sketch  the power station however i found very quickly that it was going to be a simple drawing other wise there would not be enough room for the writing. In the end i thought i would use to different boilers due to the fact that when it was  demolished there were two side by side.     

 The Portishead power station had two chimney which gave me the idea that they could be used as the P's. After drawing it i added the smoke so they resembled P's more. However i felt that the image of the power station was to large and took over the masthead.

 To resolve my problem of the image being to large i decided to use one chimney for the P of Portishead then the second for the I so it is not as excessive because i want it to look gentle and natural. However this means that the writing has to be on two different levels making it appear informal. 

So to make the writing all on one level i thought i could include a few of the letters into the picture. This did solve the problem of having writting on different levels but created another problem of it made it difficult to see what the title was saying.

Finally, i solved all my problems by moving the image to the end of Portishead and the start of  Press therefore it is not interrupting the words but is still involved. One of the chimneys is part of the d then the P i think this is the best option because the words a clear and the symbol isn't to big but is noticeable.    

I thought that i had placed my symbol in the correct place although when it came to planning my layout i discovered that there is not enough space for a masthead that long. Accordingly i have excluded the word the all together to make it shorter. This gave me enough free space to place the symbol in between the two words which i think looks formal.     

Fonts 

From the research i have done it is clear that the font can change whether the newspaper looks modern or traditional therefore it is important to get the right font. While looking through the fonts i found there was a wide variety and i am unsure of which one to choice so i am going to ask my family.   

1)FONTS

2)FONTS             

3)FONTS

4)FONTS

5)FONTS

6)FONTS

7)FONTS

8)FONTS

9)FONTS

10)FONTS

11)FONTS 
12)FONTS

There is a variety of newspaper fonts however i have found that a large majority of newspapers have their masthead in capital letters,maybe to stand out against their competitors. So for my masthead i am also going to be doing it in capital letter like the other newspapers.    

From the research i had done i found that font number 9 looks like the most traditional newspaper font. With that in mind i am going to use that font.

Portishead  Press