personal development plans: First Transpennine Express

Review on the First Transpennine Express website - for students.

I popped onto this website the other day to look at the promotions and I found the design very appealing.

Immediately when you log onto the page, the colours are bright and fun, for e.g. the purple, pink and greens. This signifies youth and therefore reaches the target audience of students. The style of imagery is very child like and cartoon. I think this is very effective for this website because it portrays the company as being hip, up to date and in touch with the younger target audience. Also, because the images are very playful it makes the whole idea of buying train tickets more exciting. You forget you are handing over money to this company and instead see it as something fun.

There is a range of typography used, but there are two main type faces. One is very formal, and easy to read. This highlights the more important copy and counter balances the fun images. It is telling the audience that they are still a professional company. It also makes it easier to read - if the font was all big and bubbly the page would look too busy and be off putting for the audience. The other main type is a more handwritten style font. This is only used in specific places, for e.g. headings and banners. It gives the page more movement and because of the contrast compared to the formal text, it stands out and looks 'clickable'.

They have used designs which students will be able to empathise with, for e.g. the corkboard with train tickets, pins and paper on. This is another effective method to use because if students can relate to the pictures, they will build a relationship with the company. By building a relationship, the audience will believe the information more and trust what is written. This therefore will give the audience more of a reason to buy the train tickets from this website.

Within the content of the website, the main copy is a competition for students. Companies know that students don't have a huge amount of money and therefore they need to grab their attention if they are selling something to them. In this case they have used a 'Win a chance to pay off your overdraft' to get them to read on. Because this is a website, it is very easy for an audience to click off very quickly. Therefore the first bit of text they read needs to keep them on the page. This website does that very successfully.

Overall, I think this website has been designed perfectly for the audience. I was captivated by it, and found myself stirring at the cartoons and smiling because of how fun they are. I think it is a breath of fresh air compared to other train websites, for e.g. Virgin.

http://www.tpexpress.co.uk/train-tickets-and-rail-offers/students.htm