Hello, Project One!

CNN, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have great online databases of their tangible articles, rich with multimedia content. They also invite more engagement by sending out email newsletters. But, there's a problem. The news isn't tailored for any one audience... until now. Cookies, social networking interaction, purchase histories, form information and IP address mapping enable extremely fine-grained ways of targeting a person's cultural interests, financial standing, religious beliefs, etc.


PICK AND RESEARCH YOUR AUDIENCE
You will be designing and choosing the content for a newsletter targeted to a specific audience. Begin by picking one of the following categories:

urban professionals
tweens
baby boomers
single parents

Add two further attributes (of your choice) to your category.
For example: single parent > 6 digit income > poker fanatic

Use the power of the internet to conduct research. Use Google searches, scan the sections of online and physical media for content and design that would be appropriate for your chosen audience. Collect the stories and design examples on your process blog (upload images, embed videos). See multimedia, be multimedia.


PICK YOUR NEWS CHANNEL AND START DESIGNING
Pick either CNN, the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times to redesign (recontextualize) for your chosen audience. There are no layout restrictions but be aware of your screen real estate, if you design a traditional vertical newsletter, you may not want the width to go over 650 pixels. If it's horizontal, the height may need to be between 300-500 pixels. It doesn't need to either, though. Experiment, stretch the possibilities.

For Tuesday September 2
Post to your blog, before class, the following:
audience research
3 static (photoshop/illustrator) solutions
written justification of each concept in relation to your audience (max 1 paragraph)