Some Inspirations from Travel and Leisure

While looking for some inspiration for doing an advertisement, I looked in a Travel and Leisure magazine to see how they laid out their advertisements. They decided to place an ad in between the table of contents. If Melanie and I choose to take this route, we would both need to plan an advertisement very soon.

Another idea that was going through my head is to do an insert on What to Pack or the hottest food locations... The What to Pack section includes key necessities the director believes is a great addition to their travels. The map of the cocktail bars shows great places to check out in London which can easily be related to New Orleans as well. Maybe Melanie will do the What to Pack and i'll do the food because it relates perfectly to our travel destinations.

These both look like great additions to add to my magazine and will further discuss with Melanie tomorrow for her advice.

PSA

Sooooo..... we've made another major change in the magazine. We decided to change the mast head to Excursion from Excursionist. We made this choice because it fits better on the page and doesn't look as smushed. We placed it in the center at the top and it looks great. In our opinion, Excursionist is specifically the traveler and Excursion is more of the journey so we thought Excursionist would fit our magazine better.

My partner Melanie and I have been able to talk out the different options we have and testing them out to see which we should use. We are trying to do the best for our magazine and are willing to take each others advice along with our classmates.

Tomorrow and next week we continue the journey of making the two-page spread. We will also come up with cover lines for our table of contents and thinking about an advertisement to put in the middle.

Here is a few links we gathered to help us learn more about advertisements...

"The Secrets to Effective Magazine Advertising." Business Town. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2017.

Staff, Entrepreneur. "Magazine Advertising." Entrepreneur. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2017.


These links help us learn about the overall magazine advertising tips and how to advertise in magazines. Be back tomorrow with more two page spread layouts!!

Start of Something New

For clarification of my blog title, the start of something new is referring to the two page spread. We've been so focused on the cover page and the table of contents that we haven't really gone in depth about it so two page spread, this ones dedicated to you...

Today as Melanie and I sat in class, we asked our classmates some advice on our magazine (which we do almost everyday because we are so indecisive and want more opinions). Melanie and I have been working so hard on this magazine and we just want it all to pay off. Today we focused on some layouts for the two page spread and a couple caught my eye...

Something about these two layouts caught my eye and I realized why I liked them so much. Its because of the use of putting the pictures inside the letters. I have so many amazing pictures from New Orleans and Mardi Gras that I could incorporate more of them in a creative way by doing this. Melanie and I spent the entire class period figuring out how to do this and finally she got it. We were so relieved. My thoughts were to write out Mardi Gras in big letters and spread it across the page like the one on the bottom does. We played around with it a bit and it looks amazing.

Heres what the letters looked like after we got it to work.  Im so excited to do more and really play around with the layout. More to come tomorrow...

"Magazine Layouts." Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

Some more minor changes and elaboration…

As Melanie and I sat in class on Thursday, we received some more constructive criticism which has only improved the look of our magazine. We first chose a new font for our masthead and it is beautiful and modern and just what we wanted. Heres a little sneak peak…  

While choosing a new font, we also decided to make both of our mastheads white so the picture can really make the page stand out. Both of our cover photos have amazing quality and colors so we wanted that to stick out instead of the masthead. There is also a slight reflection behind the masthead to make it pop as well. 

Along with the masthead, I have also changed my accent color to a dark purple which really pops on the cover and throughout the magazine, specifically the table of contents and the two page spread. I have also begun to look at more layouts for the two page spread because we have not found one that has caught our eye but hopefully one will jump out at us soon. 

I want to dive a little deeper into the details of our magazine to share more about it with you guys. On our cover page we have decided to keep it neat and modern. Underneath the masthead is the location that the magazine focuses on in big white letters. Underneath that is our main cover line which our two page spread will talk about. Underneath that are 3 adjectives to describe the cover line which are all an alliteration to each other meaning they all start with the same letter or have the same kind of sound to it. Also on the cover page there is a plus sign in between the cover line and 3 adjectives to make that sign our trademark which will be on every magazine cover. There is only information on the right hand side to make the cover picture be the main focus. We have chosen to only put one cover line on the magazine because it allows us to only focus on one topic and give our readers a surprise once they open the magazine and see all the amazing pages inside.  Also on the cover page there is a plus sign in between the cover line and 3 adjectives to make that sign our trademark which will be on every magazine cover. There is only information on the right hand side to make the cover picture be the main focus. 

Our main purpose of this magazine is to not only sell you the hottest location spots but we want to provide our readers with amazing information about these places and a little bit about the culture there, not just the breathtaking beaches and views and five-star hotels. This upcoming week will be dedicated specifically towards our two page spread and sharing with you guys some more amazing research we find. So far this process has been very tedious but it is slowly all coming together. With less than two weeks left we know that this week has to be filled with lots of new research and ideas. 

Mid-point Evaluation

Yesterday, my teacher split our class into 4 groups. In these groups we each presented our projects to each other to get back feedback. We each pulled up our blogs and explained the process to each other along with our ideas. When it got to be my turn, I showed my members my blog and magazine layout and overall I got great constructive feedback back. They told me new ideas to incorporate and maybe somethings to change to look nicer. Because of this feedback, I may reevaluate my layout and choice for a cover photo. Along with the font for the masthead of the page. My peers said my project was visually appealing to the eye and it is a great concept.

My peers suggested changing the Masthead font to make it more bold and exotic. The first one at the top is what we originally had. After looking through the list of fonts we tested out, we found the other three which we enjoy as well. We will choose one in the next few days and hope our peers enjoy these choices more.

After we left the classroom, my partner Melanie and I sat down to compare the feedback we got and decided it would be a great idea to sit down after school one day and do more research on our topic and start to plan the two page spread and fix the cover page a little to make it even better than it already is. I wrote this post just to update you guys on the progress we are making and share our experience more on this blog! Be back soon!

Why Do People Love To Travel?

While sitting at my desk thinking about what to include in my next blog, I wanted to reflect on traveling and put aside the logistics of the magazine for a day. I researched the question "Why do people love to travel?". I know why I love to travel but I wanted to see others opinions. Why would these people want to read another magazine about traveling? What would make our magazine different from all the others?

From the research, I learned 10 reasons why people love to travel, these include:
1. Challenging yourself
2. Learning
3. Expanding your perspective
4. Getting in touch with yourself 
5. Appreciating your life
6. Building and strengthening your relationships 
7. Having an adventure
8. Escaping 
9. Relaxing and Rejuvenating 
10. Celebrating

All of these reasons are what we want to include in our magazine. We want our readers to read our magazine and be able to go out and explore these amazing places based on our experiences. Traveling for me is very important. My family and I are insanely close and its always important to go somewhere new and see the lifestyle of others. New Orleans is a place that not many people realize how amazing it is. Yes it may be a party city and many people think its dirty but not many people realize the culture and how nice the people are (it's nothing like Weston, Florida). I want to convey my love for this city in my magazine and let our readers be able to feel the way I do about this city. 

"Mardi Gras is about music, parades, picnics, floats and excitement."

Specifically the edition of the magazine is about Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is an event that is put on for many years and all the people of New Orleans get together and celebrate by throwing beads and riding on floats. I want to be able to share the amazing experiences my family and I have with the readers of our magazine. 


"Mardi Gras History." Mardi Gras in New Orleans. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
"10 Powerful Reasons Why People Love to Travel." The Virtuoso Life. N.p., 30 Jan. 2017. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

The Magic Continues...

Next up, Table of Contents!!! After working so hard on starting our cover page, we were so determined to make the table of contents even better! Melanie and I both did separate research on ideas for table of contents which included looking on Pinterest for some creative ideas. After debating between a few layouts we found one that we loved!!

By using this template, it allows us to incorporate more amazing pictures within our magazine. This template is also very symmetrical and clean which is what we want our magazine to be. The amount of pictures Melanie and I have is crazy which will make our magazine very appealing to consumers. We decided to replicate this template but put pictures on both sides of the two page spread. We still have not decided if we will split the page in half and put an advertisement on the other side but we still have some time to make that decision. On this table of contents, the main color incorporated in it is hot pink because that color is in every picture in some way. Underneath every picture there is a subheading about what the article is about which has that picture on the page.

During our next sit down, we will begin to research all the subheadings for the table of contents and the main article on the two page spread. We will also look into doing advertisements and what we could choose to advertise. Lots of more hard work ahead so stay updated!

"Table Of Contents." Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.