Very busy weekend...

Overall this weekend I’ve been working in my “Things to do” section. I decided I was going to do this section of my two page spread on the Miami Music Week, most specifically, Ultra Music Festival, which is the biggest event of this whole festivity.

Ultra Music Festival is one of world’s most famous electronic music festival. The festival has a duration of three days that traditionally go from Friday to Sunday right after or before Spring Break. Ultra attracts tourist from all around the world, who gather at Bayfront Park in Downtown Miami, to enjoy live music from world known DJ’s.

During this weekend I mainly went down to Miami to take pictures of the event and its organization.

I’ll talk a little bit more about what I saw on my next post!!!

Defining the design

Days after we gathered to reconsider the theme of the magazine, my group met a second time, but this time to start discussing things more related to the layout and design of the publications.

Obviously our three magazines share the same title, but have different content. The layout has to share certain similarities. This similarities are going to be in the presentation and arrangement of the content, font and colors. Here is a sample of cover.

The cover is going to have the title “Cities” centered at the top. “Cities” is going to be written in cursive font, and the “i” is going to be a magnifying glass. The magnifying glass represents the detailed content we are presenting on every city and sector. Below the title, the name of the city edition is presented.

The layout is might vary a little, but mainly this is the rough draft we are going to be using as a guide when building our magazines. The two page spread is going to contain, in one page, the “things to do” article which informs the viewer on activities that are going on in the area around the release time. On the right page, three small horizontal articles are going to be displayed. First one displays an acclaimed restaurant of the zone, second one the most frequented area/ activity of the zone, and third is going to include and individual activity/ area fitted to the zone. For example: Anabela is doing Miami Beach, as a choice for her individual article she might choose the beach, as it is something that’s unique of her zone.   

Constructive Criticism from our peers:

Hey everyone!!

Updates on this past week: my peers and I gathered up to discuss improvements in each others project and exchanged some ideas. So the groups we choosen by our teacher and they were mainly 6 to 8 people from our same class, but with different groups and projects.

When I went ahead and discussed general things related to my magazine, there was a uncertainty among my classmates: how were we managing to create a traveling magazine just for Miami and how many editions could we plan to make in the future with such a limited space? Apparently I wasn’t the only one to be asked that, my other partner Maria, who was in a different group, was asked about the same ideas.

After the meeting Anabela, Maria and Me decided to gathered separately in order to discuss the feedback we received from our peers. Based on that, we decided to make important structural changes to our magazine.

Among the most important changes we made to the magazine, was the fact that we expanded our theme from a “local Miami” magazine to a “cities of the world” magazine. That way we could ensure that our magazine brand can continue to produce copies of different cities around the world without being restricted to one in particular.  Secondly, we decided to release 3 editions per city, dividing the city in 3 different sectors. When dividing the cities in three sectors and releasing individual contents about that sector, we ensure that our audience gets detailed information about that area of the city in specific. In the case of Miami, we are going to divide it in: Brickell, Miami Beach and Wynwood. Same as we previously decided.

Now we can continue with the production of our magazine, with a more clear view of our product.

Keep you guys updated of what’s coming!!!

FOOD

Hello!!

Surprisingly, when I was compiling the research for my last post, I was looking at the Brickell City Centre semi-annual magazine, in which they include general facts of nearby restaurants. On them, an article named “Miami’s Top 3 Chefs” gave a brief background of each chef, the location of their restaurant, and the type of food they specialized on.

As a first option they presented Chef Bradley Kilgore, that although his dishes looked fantastic on the article, he’s restaurant is located at Wynwood. I’ll make sure i refer him to my partner Maria as an option for the restaurant section of her issue. As a second option the article presented the spanish Chef Jose Andres, the winner of the James Beard Award. These award known as “The Oscar’s of Food” annual recognizes chefs, wine professionals, cookbook authors and other food experts in the United States. Working in different areas of Miami, Andres now owns his own restaurant Bazaar Mar, at the SLS Brickell Hotel & Residences. His restaurant is identified as one of the “Miami’s most popular and lucrative restaurant”. Lastly, the article presented another James Beard Award winner, who also owns a restaurant at the SLS Brickell Hotel & Residences, Chef Michael Schwartz. Schwartz, is more inclined towards the Italian cuisine, but gives it an unusual approach, by imposing the “farm-to-the-table” concept.

As I researched on these chefs, individually, I realized that these guys are as busy as any doctor or engineer. Reading on Chef Andres, he presides over 25 RESTAURANTS throughout the nation in cities like Washington DC, LA, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia. I mean, that’s CRAZY!!! So, although I would LOVE to interview these chefs and gain further insight to the type of food they create and what they want to transmit to their clients, the probability that I could schedule an encounter with them, within the next three weeks is close to zero. I’ll still try and see if I'm lucky or if not, I could schedule an interview with the restaurant manager, which I’m sure he could help by providing general information relevant in my article.

Yet, I have other restaurants in mind, which are really popular in town and still provide their clients with a unique, tasteful experience. Among them I have “La Mar by Gaston Acurio”, “CVI.CHE 105”, “Perricone's”, “KOMODO” and “Tamarina Restaurant and Bar”.

I’ll keep you guys updated on how this one goes.

- https://www.jamesbeard.org/awards/about 

- Editor@miami.com, Fred Gonzalez |. "Chef Michael Schwartz to open Fi'lia, a new Italian concept, in Brickell in fall of 2016." Miami.com. N.p., 17 Dec. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

- McLaughlin, Katy (2009-12-10). "Restaurant of the Future?". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2013-06-07.

What the Brainstorm brought!

Hey there!!

So, since I decided I was going to work in the Brickell/Downtown Miami area, I’ve been researching and compiling information about possible places I could center my issue on. The article, as I stated on my previous blog, is going to display a wide range of activities in which adults can engage in their visit  Brickell and Downtown Miami. The types of activities range from fancy dinners at the city’s most acclaimed restaurant, to shopping in the most popular mall.

Among the possible sites I’ve been researching on is Brickell City Centre. This  shopping/ mixed-use project opened it doors on November 3, 2016 offering their public an “unparalleled experience of shopping, dining and entertainment.”, according to the Brickell City Centre website. The structure is located in South Miami Avenue between Eighth Street and Sixth Street, which is a very transited area.Shops of all different types are opening their doors, ranging from the most renowned labels, such as Giuseppe Zanotti and retail department store Saks Fifth Avenue, to the must-haves of an American shopping center, like Victoria Secret. On the other hand, restaurants and bars comprise the third and fourth level of the building offering the public VIP services of food and entertainment.

I would really like to include this place in my issue as I feel it immerses the public in an exclusive shopping experience and truly represents the uniqueness of the Miami vibe. Secondly because the type of audience that is most likely to attend this site, is similar to those that targets my magazine: people with an income of $60,000- $97,170. Yet, I only want to approach this place for the entertainment section of my issue. Although this place includes pretty much everything that I’m looking for, will not focus too much in the restaurants when conducting further research in this place. The reason is because, if I do, I would be making an issue on Brickell City Centre and not a traveling guide that gets you the best of Brickell and Downtown Miami.  I rather explore more dining options elsewhere across the city.

Our Decision has been made!!!

So this week we finally decided on our theme: Tourism/ Traveling magazine.

As the week went on,  we proceeded to discuss the things our magazines had to have in common. These things not only included the title, font, logo and design, but also the content of our two page spread issue. We thought that it would be much better if we first decided on the content related to the issues, and then discuss upon the graphic elements of our magazine. That way we could adjust the graphic and design elements to the content displayed; and besides, it allowed us to spend more time working and researching on our individual content.

For the content, as I posted in my previous blog, our magazine is going to be local, and it going to focus in the city of Miami. With that being said, each of us selected a particular site within the city, in which we would base and develop our individual issues. For instance, I choose the Brickell/ Downtown Miami area, my partner Maria chose the nearby neighborhood of Wynwood, and my other partner Anabela chose Miami Beach.

Though the areas we’re working on are different, each with their own unique vibe and varying in terms of activities, our content had to share similarities. Therefore we decided to focus on activities, in which our target audience would commonly engage around our designated areas, meaning: restaurant, shopping centers, museums, among other recreational activities.

Now that we were clear on our duties, we were now able to start our research in our individual issues.    

Opps!! Change of Plans

So, as weird as it sounds, after all we went through, we are considering changing the topic of our magazine. Yes. I know, that's what happens when three women work together. We never make up our minds.

Although it not 100% sure that we’re changing it. We are considering another topic that never came into our minds, and that the three of us seem interested on: Tourism. Tourism magazines, or traveling journals, as the word says, are magazines that focus in exhibiting different traveling destinations and activities associated to each site.  Mainly there are two types of traveling magazines: “Adventure magazines” and “city-guides magazines”. When studying both types of magazines we immediately decided on the “city-guides magazine”, mainly because we wanted to take advantage of our close proximity to the city of Miami. Still, I researched a little bit more and found that, according to the World Tourism Organization over the past few decades eco- or adventure tourism has become more mainstream and experts predict the nature-based tourism to increase from a 25% to a 30% in the upcoming years.  

With this statistics, you might ask: Do we still want to do a traveling magazine that’s more guided towards the city? Well, the answer is simple. Yes. We are a local magazine. And locally, in Miami, besides the Everglades and scuba diving at the beach, there’s nothing else adventurous you could do. So capturing tourist seeking for adventures is not really an option. Therefore we’ve decided to go for more of a city guide. Besides over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in the amount of tourist visiting Miami. According to the Miami New Times, 14.6 million people visited the city in 2014 since then, there number of visitors increased to 15.8 million in 2016, according to Greater Miami and the Beaches. So the need of creating a magazine that guide our tourist through the city, seems more urgent than ever.

When analyzing our target audience, we found that most “city-guide magazine” readers have

jobs with an income ranging from $60,000 - $97,170. Our magazines target men, more specifically MARRIED men!! At first sight this level of detail seems absurd, but going further into detail, it make perfect sense. These magazines provide ideal sites and leisure activities for the perfect honeymoon or 10th anniversary trip!
Still, we have to decide whether we’re moving on with the fitness magazine or if we’re going to stick to the traveling magazine. I’ll let you guys know in my next post!

-Munzenrieder, Kyle. "Miami Tourism Breaks Records Again: 14.6 Million People Visited in 2014." Miami New Times. N.p., 02 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

-(http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-11-11/business/1998315034_1_geographic-adventure-national-geographic-geographic-traveler )

- (https://metdenver.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/56/ )

Getting it together

Over the past week my group and I have been discussing possible themes we would like to explore in our magazines. We each started to brainstorm themes we were either personally attracted to or simply interested on their process of creation. Among the many option we came with were: Food, Fashion, Health/Fitness. Some of us were reluctant to the idea of working in a fashion magazine, as they rely a lot in the clothing aspect and not as much in the techniques being displayed. These types of magazines require the proper exhibition of a wardrobe that appeals to the audience, and that we clearly do not have. On the other hand, one of our group members argued that working on a food magazine and photographing food, required many details like: light, color, textures, etc, which demanded a lot of meticulous job. For the first time we were facing, what I predicted was going to be an obstacle, collectively agreeing on something.

But then we noticed that we could fit all those themes, into one: a Fitness magazine. Where we could talk about the importance of having a balanced nutrition, the most efficient gym exercises, and of course, address the fashion aspect with the newest trend in gymwear. Each of us would pick one of the three subjects and develop it into their own magazine issue. This way we could satisfy those who wanted to do fashion and those who wanted to do food.

After our decision, we proceeded to discuss what our magazines and issues had to have in common and shared suggestions on how each could approach their theme in a  better way. Working in groups can sometimes be a pain, but in real life, these magazines are the product of teamwork, in which they constructively critique and help each other in order to come up with something great. Everywhere you go, no matter what job, career or profession you choose, at some point you’re going to have to team up and create something. So sometimes it’s better to start working on those skills at an early age

Luckily this time we ended on a happy note. I’ll let you know about the next.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog!!!  My name is Maria Clementina Pablo, and over the next five weeks I will be publishing in this blog everything related to my Final AS Media Project. But before giving further insight about my blog, a proper introduction to the person who writes it must be made.

As I previously stated, my name is Maria Clementina, but mainly I go for Clementina. I’m a senior at Cypress Bay high school and I’m still in the journey of searching a career that better suits my academic and personal interests. This class has not only introduced me to the world of advertising and mass communications, but it has also made me consider possibly majoring in this field. This project will most certainly serve as my first insight of what is like to work in this field and potential problems you could face during the process.

This blog will be the platform where I’ll be documenting the creation process of my project in which I’m working with two other fellow classmates, Anabela Puyana and Maria Ponce de Leon. The project consists in creating a magazine including three of its main components: Cover page, Table of Contents, and a Two-page layout which includes an article. The three of us will be working with the same magazine theme, but each will create their own issue. Although at the beginning I was very excited to work in a group, I’ve come to realize that it could turn into a real challenge, as agreeing on basic points is not always easy. Still, I remain open and thrilled to the personal and professional journey that this project represents.

So without further due, let the journey begin!