My second ancillary task was to create a website including two hyper-linked pages to combind with my newspaper and poster. After researching into a few student and local newspaper websites to gain some inspiration I decided to incorperate what I had gathered from my information with my own design which I think represents my newspaper in a more suitable manner.
Firstly, I made some rough designs to get an idea of how I wanted my website to look.
Rough design 1:
Rough Desgin two: (an improved design in which I wanted to follow)
Then I took my rough design when I was finally happy with it and used dream weaver to create my website.
Page two (Local News link page):
The idea of having a 'local news page' came from my research of other newspaper website and they most of them included one as it is an important aspect of a newspapers purpose. By using this idea, I was able to put the front page story from 'The Epic' as the first news update, similar to what 'The Sun' does on their website as well as many others. The background image is one of the primary images used for the same story in the newspaper but it is faded to create a dramatic effect. Once again, the colour scheme and font type is used throughout the page as to what is found in the newspaper and poster keeping to the look and theme of 'The Epic' as a whole. Also relating to the newspaper, I placed the email adress needed for readers to send in their snow photographs which is promised when the website is advertised in the newspaper. It is also still important to advertise the weeks issue within the website to attract more readers so I used persuasive language to invite them 'found in this weeks paper!' and 'be in next weeks issue!'.
Page one (Home page):
The homepage is clear a importance to a website as it is the first thing people are exposed too and straight away make a judgement therefore I used a variety of different fonts and a large image to make it eye catching. A poll is a good way to get an audience involved as well as a forum where the public can chat to the team and give their views and own ideas about the newspaper. By letting viewers of the website feel more engaged they are more likely to buy my paper if they feel they have involvement within it. There are regular updates that would be one of the first things you read on the homepage along with a story that I feel would appeal most to my targeted audience of teenagers and students 'Fight in local club'. Overall, I hope to have achieved an easy to use website but one that looks busy and 'funky' inviting and engaging in my audience with interesting stories, polls and regular updates.