Change of plans

On a recent group meeting, we tried designing our original title for our magazine, which was "CITY". What we wanted to do was to use change the I for a magnifying glass but when we actually tried to do it, we realized it would not work and it that looked very ugly. Our problem was that the circle from the I is detached from it where as in the magnifying glass is all attached, and it ended up not looking like an I. We had no other ideas to make it work and we started to get really pissed off because we had no other name and nothing came to our minds...

IT'S SO HORRIBLE! IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE AN I AND IT DOESN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE A MAGNIFYING GLASS EITHER!!!

So this is our attempted fail.. It is so annoying when you have something in mind but it just doesn't  look liked you expected when you actually make it :):, so yeah it was frustrating, and then we decided we need to change the name of the magazine. Probably a good thing now that I think about.. the name was pretty cliché and not as good as we thought when we first got the idea.

After talking and looking for a solution, we decided to change the magazine's name. We came up with new names (this time only including letters) and the best one was: Urban Spots. I like this title better than the first one because is more interesting and I think it fits with the theme.

plans... plans...

So this is my planning for next week...

I plan to go to Wynwood on Saturday where I will try to get the most information I can. I will take the pictures needed for my two page spread, including the walls, the food, and the stores which are the themes on my magazine.

I think it would be interesting if I interview people who work there, or people who had lived the transformation of Wynwood, so I can include their personal experiences in my magazine.

For the food there was a place that really caught my attention and it is called "The Salty Donut" which according to my research it is very famous in the area. I will go there to take pictures of the food to include them in my magazine, as the last post showed, and I will also like to try this donuts to let you know if they are as amazing as people say! I also want to find out how they are made and what makes them so popular in this area.

It's going to be a long but interesting day... I will sure get the experience of Wynwood before recommending other people to experience it in my magazine. I'm excited for this weekend, since I've never been there before! SOO, a lot of new things going on for mee :) stay tuned. 

The layout

In class, with my group we designed this layout for our magazine. This is how we want it to look like. We are planning to make our coverline of the main article the biggest so it can be different from the other coverlines. Our cover image will be of the place we each chose, in my case Wynwood, and the main coverline will be related to this image since the article from the two page spread is going to be about the place each of us chose. The other coverlines will be related to Miami but not to our place, so it will be things that will aid the reader in their trip to the specific city.  All of three editions will maintain the same format.

We still need to chose a font four our masthead and choose the colors we will like to use for the masthead and coverlines. Since its Miami, bright colors come to mind because of the tropical weather it has.

Here, we designed our two page spread. This is only an idea of what we want to include but we are not sure it will look exactly like this.

What we are sure of is that on the first page,he article will be different for all of us, each of use is going to chose something important to talk about our place.  In my case I want my article to be about how Wynwood has drastically changed this years, from being a dangerous place to being one of the most visited places in Miami. I also want to include a story of how the painted walls has changed the life of people who live in Wynwood and how it has helped those who work here. For this I plan to interview few people that are there.

The next page will be the same idea for all of us in the group. We plan to include one restaurant that is worth visiting in our chose place, what people most visit there, and an  activity we think is worth mentioning.

The name

After a meeting in the class and a lot of ideas... even though it was not easy since we are  three woman that think very differently we've decided the name for our magazine. We will call it "CITY".

The name of "CITY" was chosen because our magazine will be a type of monthly publication, which will contain three editions focused on the same city of the United States, detailing in depth different places that you can visit, describing some histories of the most tourist sites, and stating events scheduled for that month. This magazine can be used as a guide so that the people who buy it can have a clear and specific idea of ​​the place before or during their trip.

The idea is to attract the attention of the reader, not for the interest of the immediate news but for the valuable information they find in it which can be of great help to make your trip pleasant.

To choose the cities that we will use in our editions, we will take into account which are the most visited within the United States like: New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas, etc. The first publication with its three editions will be about Mami.

Now the hard work begins as we begin with the design and information of the magazine...

The beginning..

At the moment each of us chose a theme or a particular place that is related to the city of Miami, we must develop that theme individually and then review it together. I chose the Wynwood neighborhood, my partner Clementina chose Brickell / Downtown Miami area and my other partner Anabela chose Miami Beach.

I started my research on the internet and found this link where we tell the story of Wynwood.

Although most Miami tourists spend most of their time in South Beach and its surroundings, without denying that Miami Beach is one of the best destinations to rest on the beach, Florida also has places like the Wynwood that give that urban charm that makes Miami such a different place and that deserves to be visited not only because it is the fashionable neighborhood.

Wynwood is the favorite place for Hipsters and bohemians. Very recently this area stopped being dangerous and quickly became the favorite neighborhood for those who are looking for an alternative and artistic corner in Miami. Personally it reminds me a lot of Williamsburg in New York.

Every day there are more stores who open their doors in this area, apartment buildings have been revalued very fast and musicians and artists have taken the neighborhood to fill the area galleries and recording studios. The neighborhood's ornate walls and the large number of quality bars and restaurants that have appeared in Wynwood guarantee its success.

In my next blogs you will be able to know more about this subject and especially of the development and elaboration of our expected magazine.

DECISION MADE!

Finally!!!
After reviewing all the options and many hours of discussion, this week we decided that the topic for the magazine will definitely be Tourism and Travel.
To start with our project, we believe that it is better before starting with the photos, name, or designs of the pages, to review more thoroughly and to concentrate in a special place since when talking about Tourism and Travel We can cover many places.
That is how I started with my search by reading in a very interesting article from the magazine “Negocios” that indicates that in 2016 Florida imposed a new record in tourism reaching the highest number of visitors in history with 112.8 million, turning to Miami in the second most visited city of the United States. This caught my attention and by sharing it with the group we decided that we would really like to know more about that city that we have so close and that is also considered as a tourist destination of sun and beach excellence, and a tropical paradise that the whole world should know.

Miami 

Why visit Miami?
Miami is different from other American cities. Its privileged location in South Florida makes it a tourist destination where you can enjoy a warm climate during the twelve months of the year.
With an average annual temperature of 75 degrees, Miami beaches are crowded for most of the year. Its endless stretches of white sand combined with its blue water form an incomparable setting to enjoy the holidays.

Although beaches are Miami's greatest attraction, it is certainly a place that has much more to offer; You can enjoy a refreshing day in the Everglades National Park, have a Cuban-style cafe in Little Havana, spend a fun day with the animals on Jungle Island or sit on one of the terraces on Ocean Drive to observe the environment of South Beach.

Coming closer to our decision...

We continue in our search and although we have all participated in exchanging ideas and giving our opinion it has become very difficult to reach a definitive agreement on the subject that we will use for our magazine.


For now, the three of us consider that the theme that most strikes us is Tourism, and personally I think this topic can be very interesting because it will allow us to know and make people know several places in depth.


So to get a better understanding of the types of tourism magazines that exist, I started my research...


A tourism magazine can be aimed at tourists or travelers as it provides details about a particular location or geographical area, a tourist destination or a particular itinerary. Usually including details of interest such as phone numbers, addresses, hotel prices and other accommodations, restaurant prices, main means of transport available, etc. Additionally there is detailed information about the cultural centers and activities of the area: museums, theaters, main monuments and tourist sites that can be visited. Sometimes this magazine may also contain historical and cultural information about the city, country or region.

There are several types of travel magazines that can focus on different aspects of travel, from adventure travel to relaxation travel or targeting travelers with higher or lower budgets. Others focus on the particular interests and concerns of certain social groups, such as lesbians and gays or couples. Similarly, there are visual guides that contain lots of images of the destination and others more focused on the practical information of the trip.

In addition, I have also been able to investigate that, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), tourism has experienced continuous growth for decades, making it one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world. By the year 2017 the WTO is forecasting growth in arrivals of international tourists between 3% and 4%. Considering the growth of tourism, creating a magazine that guides tourists to know the cities can become a very profitable business.

Should we do this for our magazine?

When you are in a group you have to listen to all the points of view and if one person is not agreeing with the others ideas then the group can't move forward.. 

So... I start my research on Travel Magazines... For me this is a topic that SCREAMS TROUBLE because where are we going to get the pictures from? What are the stories going to be? We are going to actually have to get out of our little town because Weston... oh well is pretty much all the same.. 

Miami is the closest place to us, so if we choose this magazine I think Miami is our going to our city to "explore". 

-The font of this magazine is very clean, organized and uses light colors. Tends to focus more on the cover image. 

-The cover image is of the place the consumer wants to know about.

- The content is typically of what to do in the place the audience wants to visit.

- This magazines have a specific target audience, which is people that want to gain information of the place they want to visit or know about, which is usually males or females of the middle class from 30-60 years old. 

- The images incite you to go to the place, they are usually high quality images of a beautiful landscape. 

- This magazines call the attention of the consumer and "end up being a family magazine", which enriches people's cultures. 

Fitness? Food?

Even though I thought we had already picked a topic for our magazine, after a conversation through a group chat we are still unsure of what to do. We haven’t really had time to get together and discuss what we want for our magazine to be. We all have our different ideas, we just don’t know which one to pick and it has been really hard to communicate.

We have this ideas:

• Fitness Magazine
• Food Magazine
• Travel Magazine

I researched only two of three options because those are the ones that convince me the most, and have the same target audience.

- Model stares straight to the camera. This cover page incites you to work out because of the usage of a person with a good body.

- The magazine uses different fonts for every coverline.

- The colors are "girly" colors and by reading the coverlines we can see that this are topics that are meant to be for women of a middle class from 20-40 years old.

- This magazine's coverlines are kind of messy and all together, which is typical in women's magazines like this one, because this target audience is more interested the "tips, advices, news" of a good body rather than an organized, clean magazine. Overall, they like to see more information on how they can be like their model.

- The main image is an image of high quality, which according to my research is important because it what incites the audience to purchase the magazine. 

- The font is not so big to give focus to the image. 

- This type of magazine offer promotions for supermarkets or a bonus section of special recipes. 

- This magazines tend to choose recipes and foods of the season they are released in due to extensive competition. 

Intro to my blog

What are you doing for your project?, they ask. Well that's a pretty hard question when you  have so many ideas and want to do so many things but you only get one chance to do it right and to make something amazing out of it.

I am Maria Ponce, an eleventh grader, Cypress Bay High school student, and as lot of teenagers I struggle with decisions. I see this project as a something I’ve never done before, as a chance to challenge myself and have something at the end that I am really proud of. I’m going to make from this project an experience I will never forget and it is something that will help me from now on in every aspect of my life.

I will be documenting my journey through this blog, this will be my space to just get out all of my thoughts of the process of this project: my ideas, my good and bad days, my struggles… basically everything that goes through my mind. This blog is something that will get me out of my comfort zone because I’m the type of person that doesn’t express that much, but I am very excited to start this new journey and to see the person I am after this experience.

Back to my decision making... I started to think what is trending right now? And so I started  to look at different magazines. I was amazed by all the different options you have for making a magazine and the only thing that came to my mind is whatever you choose, you have give it your all because a first impression is what matters the most. I thought it would be a great idea to make a fashion magazine, but I kept thinking and realized that a lot of brands of clothing in the last years have released a line of sports clothes so I thought, why not do a fitness magazine? After all, a lot of people are involved with this topic since most of the people care about how they look and feel. Anyway this is just me throwing out ideas. With my group, we will do more research on different topics to decides which one fits us better.

Welcome to my blog and stay tuned!