REGIONALNEWSPAPERDESIGNANALYSIS

LOGOSColour: Regional papers to use bright or pastel colours as a background for their logos, large, block white text as the paper name, with smaller coloured text as part of the regional name. There are often slight drop shadows on the white portion of the text. The Birmingham Post logo is quite different to the other two logos, as it only has a single colour for text.The effect of this is that all 3 papers are visually distinct at a distance before the reader has been able to discern what the logo actually says, which is attractive to both regular readers and new ones alike.

Fonts: Both the Shropshire star and the Telford Journal use an emboldened sans serif font for the large text, and, but differ slightly in the locality font, with the Shropshire star using a smaller serif font rather than the Journals' font. The Birmingham Post opts for a large, serif font that would take up the entire top row rather than more horizontally.

The effect of the Telford Journal and Shropshire star fonts is that the papers are easily recognisable as more tabloid than broadsheet based, as the design is shared with some tabloids such as The Sun. The Birmingham post establishes itself as more intelligent and thoughtful broadsheet through it’s logo dessin.

Layout: Both the Shropshire Star and the Telford Journal and Shropshire Star use a similar layout with the region in smaller text above the paper’s name, I don’t think this is a good design choice, because for example in a shop the “Telford” or “Shropshire text may not be readable from across the shop, meaning they may lose out on potential customers.

My Thoughts: I much prefer the Birmingham Post logo. I find the colour much more appealing as it does not have the harshness of the Telford Journal, nor the ugly yellows of the Shropshire Star. I prefer the font, as I find serifs more representative of a ‘quality’ newspaper, as well as the layout giving equal prominence to both aspects of the logo is better design.

COVERLayout: Contrary to what I originally thought of the Birmingham Post, it is actually a tabloid with a rather cramped layout; Almost 1/3rd of the vertical space is adverts, with 50% of the remaining space being pictures. There is no actual writing content on the front-page at all, just straplines. The Telford and Shropshire more similar to eachother than the Post. In the Shropshire star, there is a top-down hierarchy with the main story at the top with lesser stories below. Contrarily, the Telford Journal has headlines in the middle with lesser stories expanding outwardly. I prefer the Shropshire Star’s to the other 2, it is a simple top-down design and has a good amount of content on the front page, unlike the others

My thoughts: I think the Birmingham Post’s is awful, so I will not address it more here. In all I prefer the Shropshire star, as the layout makes more sense in my mind, with the edges reserved for advertisements and content towards the centre. The Telford Journals is odd and in my opinion confusing with it’s layout, so I prefer the Shropshire star, although I still believe the Birmingham Post’s logo is better, as are it’s headlines. The Post has too many pictures for me, and not enough text compared to the other two.

Fonts: Although the text is too small to see here, all papers use a similar serif font for the main body text, the main difference is in the headlines. Both the Telford Journal and Shropshire star use exactly the same for headlines: A large, blocky bold sans serif text which creates a sense of urgency and sensationalism, whereas the Post’s fonts are a semibold serif font which is more civilised or intelligent paper, contrary to actual content. I prefer te posts.Pictures: The post has a massive reliance on pictures, with almost all the page being pictures. The other two papers do not, with the pictures supplementing stories which I prefer.

INSIDE PAGELayout: All of these papers use vastly different layouts. The Birmingham post, which is the top-right uses an almost magazine-esque style, with an image taking up the top 1/3rd, then a title then the text below it. This top-down hierarchy means the reading experience for the reader is less complex and more enjoyable.

The Shropshire star which is the top-left is similar to it’s front page, it has a large title page with a main story, with surrounding stories being small columns. This design is useful for presenting a large amount of information quickly, but in my opinion the design is cluttered and unappealing. The Telford Journal(bottom) is like a cross between the other two. It has 2 main stories, each with an attached picture.My Thoughts: In this case I prefer the Birmingham post, as in my opinion the design is more concise and modern than the cluttered design of the other 2 papers. In practice I will likely go for something closer to the Telford Journal however, as the Birmingham Post is not similar enough to a traditional newspaper to be accurate to my brief.

CONTENTMy Thoughts: I will always prefer broadsheet journalism to tabloid journalism. I have a strong dislike of tabloids, and as such prefer broadsheets. In this case I prefer the Telford Journal, as it’s stories are more interesting in my view, but this does not matter as much as the actual style of content itself.

Tabloids: The Birmingham post is a tabloid, as the headlines are sensational “3m stock for £1” is an inflammatory headline designed to have the reader buy the paper just for that story, rather than actual insightful content in the form of proper journalism. Tabloids are marked by inflammatory headlines, low reading age and strong bias.

Broadsheets: The Shropshire Star and Telford Journal both seem to be broadsheets, compared to the Post. This type of paper is often less biased than tabloids, and contain a higher reading level and more investigative journalism. They are still biased and often contain non-stories, as a daily paper may not have enough content to fill all of it’s pages. Broadsheets often have more writing on a page than Tabloids, as you can see with the two papers that are not the post.All: All papers have significant ad space, which is how these papers help keep the cost of the papers low. The amount of ad space changes on depending on the style of paper, for example tabloids have more significant ad space than broadsheets, which make more room for writing, again identifying the change in quality.