Brief Two: Web Design Brief (including Genre Research)

NB: This brief will have very similar wording to the actual briefs that will be released by the exam board. There are lots of small details that you need to think about carefully.

THE BRIEF: ONLINE CONTENT

You work for an independent online Media Production company. You have been tasked with creating a mock-up version of the Homepage and One Hyperlinked Page, for an online newspaper called Guardian Youth. You must maintain clear links to The Guardian brand, but with a focus on attracting younger readers. Your target audience is 16 to 25 year olds who are socially conscious and politically aware. 

 

STEP 1: CODES AND CONVENTIONS RESEARCH

i) Analyse the codes and conventions of The Guardian Online's homepage and create a PowerPoint presentation that identifies the conventions of the website and considers how they are designed to appeal to their target audience.

ii) Analyse the codes and conventions of a hyper linked article on The Guardian Online's website and create a PowerPoint presentation that identifies the conventions of the website and considers how they are designed to appeal to their target audience. 

NB: That is two presentations.

Helpful Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk 

 

STEP 2:  WRITE A STATEMENT OF INTENT BASED ON YOUR RESEARCH

Answer the following question:

How do you intend to use, develop or challenge the codes and conventions of Guardian Online's existing website to attract your target audience? 

Using no more than 200 words, identify the conventions that you feel will appeal to your assigned demographic and establish which ones (if any) you wish to challenge and why. This should be two, simple and concise paragraphs. 

EXAMPLE

My brief is to create a mock-up Homepage and Hyperlinked Page, for an online newspaper called Guardian Youth targeting a socially conscious and politically aware 16 to 25 year olds audience. I'll maintain clear links to the Guardian brand by using the same colour scheme and Masthead as the current website, but will include the word 'Youth' to clearly distinguish the name of the new online newspaper. Beyond this, I have decided to challenge the conventions of the current brand substantially. I will still feature a series of tabs for easy navigation, but to appeal to my audience I will use Today's News, Politics, Sport, Environment, Entertainment,  University,  Identity, Activism and Health and Wellbeing. When I asked a random sample of teenagers, they identified these as their main areas of interest. The layout and design of the page will be very different to the conventional form. I will use a three by three grid designed to resemble Instagram, which is intended to help younger people identify the brand as being aimed at them and also to differentiate it from other online newspapers. I also want the content to be a little more informal helping to develop more of a a sense of equality with my readership.

My hyperlinked page will be an article about university fees, accessible via the University tab. This will obviously appeal to the educated and politically aware readers as they will tend to be more educated. I will use a relatively formal layout and design, headline, sub headline, image, article and graphics. However, I will make my content a little more image dense to appeal to the the younger end of the target audience, but will still make the story serious to appeal to the readership whose interests in social issues and political awareness, probably suggests they are more willing to read carefully. 

STEP 3: CREATE YOUR WEB PAGES

For this task, you will need to create a wix account. You should be able to get a free account. DO NOT PAY FOR AN ACCOUNT. As the brief clearly states:

Create the homepage for an online Newspaper called Guardian Youth.

Create one hyperlinked article, that can clearly be accessed via the homepage.

In addition, your web pages MUST contain:

At least 5 original images. At least 2 of these original images must include representations of two distinct social groups, based on Social Class, Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Sexuality or Ability/Disability. 

For any other images you may use either found images or AI generated images. 

NB: If you access any tutorials (and you definitely should), paste the link in the comments section below.  

STEP 4: CREATE A PAGE ON YOUR BLOG

In the Practice Briefs section of your blog, create a post titled:

"Brief Two: Web Design Brief (including Genre Research)"

The post should contain your two embedded PowerPoints - VERY CLEARLY LABELLED

Your Statement of Intent - VERY CLEARLY LABELLED

The address of your homepage - VERY CLEARLY LABELLED

The address of your hyperlinked page - VERY CLEARLY LABELLED

Finally, a brief set of instruction about how to navigate from the homepage to the hyperlinked page.

 

STEP 5: POST YOUR PAGE

Post the url of your  blog page in the comments section below. 

Deadline for completion: November 13th 2026