Charlotte Bone A2 Media

After being advised by my friends, I decided to use wix.com to create my website as it is free and easy to use. I chose a blank layout in order to create my wesbite from scratch, plus the layout that they offered were not relevant to what I am hoping to create.

The URL/name of my website I chose is 'wickham-gazette', as this is clear and blatantly obvious. The word 'gandybone' (shown below in the HTML) is my username which is also included.

When I created the nav/menu bar I had to decide which pages I was going to include on it and decided on: 'Home' (obviously), 'News', 'Events', 'Leisure', 'Local Info', 'Sport', 'Contact', 'Jobs', 'Homes', 'Cars' and 'Dating'. I have decided to create two hyperlinked pages to 'News' and 'Contact' as I feel that they will both be relatively easy for me to create as I have all the information which I need to create them in terms of articles etc. On the 'News' page I will add more stories which couldn't fit on the home page, and on the 'Contact' page I will have an interactive map for readers to use and see where Wickham is and how far they are from it.

Above are some printscreens showing firstly how I created the menu bar; adding a button for each individual section, and then the completed nav bar as it is shown on the website.

The printscreen above shows how I was able to change the colour of the button when it is stationary, when it is clicked/selected and when the mouse hovers over it. I made these changes in order to show that my website is interactive, as I think that when you go to click something on a website, if the link moves or alters in some small way you acknowledge that the link is working. I kept to a basic colour scheme of grey as I did not want to use vibrant colours that would clash with the red theme I have used to correspond with my title.

The above printscreen demonstrates my alterations visually: 'Home' is the page which is currently selected as the font has gone black and the background has become lighter. 'News' has not been selected and is shown as it normally is, with white font and a grey background. 'Events' is being hovered on by the mouse, and has subsequently turned inverted it's usual colours and turned black with white writing, to show clearly that it is being selected.

This is an advert which I created for Wickham's local pub. I checked with the owners if I could use the photographs and they gave me permission, so I put them on a sandy background, and added some text and their logo. I feel that this advert is similar to something which you would expect to find on a local paper, especially as this pub is actually Wickham's pub. I have hyper-linked this advert to the Victory Inn's website, just as I have with my two other adverts, one for a catering company and another for a skip hire company.

The above advert is for my cousins catering equipment company, Akro. She allowed me to use and manipulate the images to create my advert. I felt that the colour was quite neutral and would therefore fit in well on my website, as I don't want too many bright images on the home page deterring people from the actual articles.

This advert is for my brothers Skip hire/waste disposal company. He also allowed me to use and manipulate the images and use the name of the company. I used the blue colour again because although it blended in and didn't stick out too much, it also contrasted with the red theme which ensured that my whole page wasn't too boring and all one colour.

On the home page I briefly mentioned some articles, writing the title in the serif font Georgia to make it stand out against the rest of the writing, which was smaller, not bold and Arial (sans serif). I chose the latter because it is simple and easy to read. I also made the headlines of the stories a different colour to stand out even more and grab the readers attention. I only used a teal colour, as I didn't want to use anything too bright to make sure I didn't cause the page to become too bright and appear unprofessional. I used both these fonts because they are similar to what the Halstead Gazette uses on their website.

On local newspaper's websites, most feature a search bar, such as the Suffolk Free Press, which had one on the home page. This search bar allows the reader to search for whatever they choose on the website, in order to help them find what they are looking for quickly. I decided I would include a search bar on my website as I think it helps to make my website look more professional. When you hover the mouse over the word 'search', it enlarges and a shadow forms behind it so that the reader knows they are about to click the word 'search'. The printscreens below demonstrate this.

When mouse isn't hovering over

When mouse is hovering over

I placed it just above the menu bar, to the right.

In order to connect with a more younger audience, I added Facebook and Twitter links to my website. I created a Facebook page and a Twitter account for the Wickham Gazette and linked them to the icons. By displaying social networking sites on my website, I am broadening the target audience, as mainly teenagers use Facebook and Twitter. The screenshots below show how I created them.

I clicked 'add', then 'clip art' then 'icons'

These were some of the interactive icons to choose from

I included the date at the top of my website, in the middle. All websites I have looked at such as the Halstead Gazette, the Braintree and Witham Times and a the Sudbury Mercury include today's date so I made up a date and added it in the nav bar at the top. To create the nav bar I used the same process as before (see above), except I changed the colours slightly.

The date can be seen in the middle of the nav bar at the top.

I also decided to create a weather forecast, which is another feature commonly used on local newspaper websites. On the Halstead Gazette, todays weather is shown with the temperature, a picture of the weather e.g. a sun for sunny or a cloud for cloudy. This helps the reader to identify what the weather is like quickly and easily without actually even reading anything. The picture of the type of weather and the temperature stand out on the weather feature. I attempted to create my own weather forecast using neutral colours to enable the sun to stand out. There is an option for readers to get the full weather forecast by clicking on the link 'weather forecast >>' highlighted in blue. Despite the weather being wishful thinking and not reality, due to the fact that I chose the date to be June, I felt that I had to make the weather relative to the time of year. I feel that this makes my website look more professional.

My weather feature creation

I also decided to create a marquee, as on other websites I have researched, particularly news websites, they all appear to have one. In order to create this, I had to add 'page groups'. The printscreens below demonstrate how I did it.

I went to 'add', then 'page parts', then 'page groups'.

I then changed the page transition to 'elastic'

I then went to 'add', and then 'text', then 'paragraphs' and added a text box to each page of the page transitions

I then went to 'add', 'navigation' and then 'controllers'. I then picked the 'prev/next' controller and placed it next to my marquee.

In each page group, of which there are three, a different headline appears. The transition changes from headline to headline every few seconds.

On every local newspaper website that I researched I found a section dedicated to the most popular, most read and most shared articles on the website, so I decided to create a 'most popular' section. I used a large, bold, serif font in capitals to catch the readers attention with 'most popular'. It also has a red background, which keeps with the red theme of my newspaper. The list of stories is written in smaller sans serif font which is easier to read. It has a grey background to ensure it doesn't blend in on the home page which is mainly white.

I uploaded pictures that corresponded with my articles. The print screen below shows how I uploaded pictures.

To upload pictures I clicked 'add' and then 'pictures'. A box then appeared with the option in the top right hand corner to 'upload image'. I selected that which allowed me to upload pictures from my computer on to my website.

Above are the articles that are on my homepage, both with corresponding images. I added underneath the headline of the article when it was last updated as I had seen this used many times on local newspaper websites to help the reader know whether the story is recent or not. I inserted clip art of dotted lines to separate that small section of writing from the headline and brief summary. I used a small sans serif font called Arial for this. I used Arial again on the summary of the article, but made it slightly bigger. This summary will inform the reader what the article is about so that they know whether it will interest them or not. The headline is in teal in order to stand out and contrast against the black, white and red which are the most common colours used on my website. I used Georgia which is a serif font for the headline, which is larger than the other text in order to stand out and catch readers attention.