This site successfully mimics a real online newspaper through effective page design, text arrangement, and font selection. Its muted sense of color and use of gray scale graphics with a splash of color on smaller key elements reflect the serious tone and understated elegance that is currently appropriate for this type of publication. With some exception, the photos used are of real images and the information banner across the top and left side rail are familiar to newspaper readers. The side buttons used are appropriately conservative in style similar to a reversed sub-head or captions. Its contents are topics that can be found in real online newspapers such as: News, Lifestyle, Sports, Entertainment, Opinion, and Politics listed in the side rail and game scores, weekly events, and the weather forecast in the information bar at top.
The headline is clean, solid black, all caps, and is a semi-serif font that is easy on the eye with a nice, soft drop-shadow. However attractive the pages may look, there are visual clues to the true nature of its content. The heading itself is deceptively clean and simple, yet emotes a sense of the sinister. The name CAPRICAN has a negative connotation depicting mistrust and the font (as clean as it is) can appeal to conservative and liberal alike. It is classic, yet contemporary, but deliberately pointed like the thorn on a blackberry bush.
The body copy is also not the traditional serif font of newsprint, but online it is so much easier and attractive to read in this smaller font-size and gray ink. There is also a nice clean contrast between sub-headings and body copy. This is all part of this publication deception: to entice the reader. Once the reader begins to read one of the articles the sinister nature and less than moral purpose behind it can be revealed. It contains language that is offensive to some and sarcastic in nature.
