Front Page Draft

This is my first draft of the front page.
I chose a conservative blue colour for the banner as this represents the values I want to put across. There are 8 columns across the page, which after research I have noticed is typical on local newspapers.
There are a lot of problems with it, the biggest being the large amount of empty space, the page should be completely covered so not to leave blank, white spaces, not only is this a waste of paper that could be taken up by smaller news stories but it is also aesthetically displeasing.
The climbing wall article and the skate park article should not be in line like they are as there could be confusion to which columns are in which articles.
There should also be a thin column of contents or articles running down the right alignment as this is traditional in local newspapers.
Finally the photos (which aren't mine yet) should be bigger, so they look more attractive on the page, and to break up the text so that the page seems more interesting.

On this draft of my newspaper I have inserted my own photos and arranged the text around them so it looks neat and professional. Having the text tight around the images like this means there is no negative space. I have also arranaged all the stories into individual columns apart from the main story. This highlights it as the main story. One problem with is the image for the main story is longer than the block of text, which seperates it from the story and doesn't look very good.

On this draft I have further tweaked the spacing of the columns, headlines and images. I have also included an advert. Adverts can be usually found at the bottom of local newspaper's front page. To fit in with the representation of Harrogate being a smart and reasonably wealthy town my advert is for an upmarket garden landscapers. The Bright pink and green really stand out next to the plain text. To improve this draft I need to make the main headline smaller so it is obvious which story it belongs to and also arrange the text into columns, as it is not very common for articles to be arranged in a solid block and also the image needs to be the same size as the text. There also needs to be more contents in the boost at the top of the page or images.