Because my spread is focused on the December issue of the magazine, I want my spread to share holiday cheer and winter feels. I can focus that in two different directions. The first idea would pertain more to Christmas. I would use red and green highlights along with other Christmas elements. The other direction I can take is a winter wonderland atmosphere with white and blue highlights along with snowy features. My friend Gabi volunteered to model for the cover page which is great! Now I have to brainstorm what she would be doing on the cover page. Because the photographs will be taken in spring, it may be difficult to capture the winter elements. I think the easiest way to do this will be to photograph Gabi on a plain white background. The white background can substitute for the snowy atmosphere. I'll be back next time with up to date cover page ideas!

Works Cited

"Winter Luxury Lifestyle." SNOW Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017. <http://thesnowmag.com/>.

       Today in class, we were split up in groups to analyze our foundation portfolios. Our teacher ensured that we were split up from our group members so we were able to get advice from other individuals. This experience extremely helped direct content for my spread. The group atmosphere contained nothing but positive feedback. At first I was super nervous that everyone would criticize my ideas and make fun of me, but I was wrong! Because we are all going through the same journey with this project, no one was completely confident with themselves. We were pleasantly surprised with how helpful it was to bounce ideas off of each other. They loved my idea of having a minimalistic cover with a bold title! With the help from my peers, I have a better understanding on what to include. 

   As I said in an earlier post, Seventeen Magazine has the most influence for my spread. Similarly to Seventeen, I aim to have my magazine be an outlet for teens to rely on when going through exciting events, conquering major milestones, and everything in between.

I decided to examine both the content and design of Seventeen and here are some reoccurring details of the cover page, two- page layout, and content!

Cover Layout:

• Mostly only one individual, but at times has two or three
• Backgrounds are colorful and bright
• Plain colored backgrounds 
• White backgrounds are the most frequent
• Sometimes the backgrounds are of faded scenery
• Mainly females on the cover
• Bold title font
• Many headlines on cover 
• The headline fonts and colors differ 

I love how the center focus is on the model of the cover, but I am not a fan of the scattered writing. I would like my cover to be as minimalistic as possible.

Two page layout:

• The design seems to resemble a scrapbook
• A lot going on
• Collage-like format
• Colorful
• Not a set layout in every issue
• Extremely diverse

I enjoy the scrapbook feel of the spread, but I would like mine to be more organized.

Content:

• Style, fashion, and beauty
• College 
• Careers
• Celebrities
• Love
• Health and fitness
• relationships with friends and guys
• Personality quizzes
• Music and film
• Trends
• Etc.

I want all of the above content to be featured in our magazine, but I'm still undecided on what the focus of my spread should be.

Works Cited

Abidor, Jen. "Zendaya Isn't Here For Social Media Haters: "If I Like It, I Like It"." Seventeen. N.p., 08 Sept. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2017. <http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/news/a42695/our-social-media-issue-cover-star-has-some-pretty-big-goals/>. 

Devoe, Noelle, Hannah Orenstein, Alyssa Bailey, Kaitlin Menza, Kayleigh Roberts, Danielle Tullo, Brooke Shunatona, and Eliza Thompson. "Noelle Devoe." Seventeen. N.p., 25 Mar. 2017. Web. 20 Mar. 2017. <http://www.seventeen.com/>.

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

 -Zora Neale Hurston

Day number 2 of research! I feel as though progression is underway and I couldn't be happier! Today I have been noting what I like and don't like in magazines of the same genre. I was only focusing on the cover, but tomorrow maybe I’ll analyze the two-page layouts.

I want my title to be so attractive that the sight of it will draw people in to read. The font of the title is the most important element that grasps the readers. It should be big and clear at the top center of the page.

I have fixed feelings about the “Teen Vogue” covers. I love how each cover is focused on only one or two celebrities. This is a great advertisement strategy. The issue I have is with the font. In some issues, the title color is hard to read and looks washed away from the background.

Research, Research, Research! 

We have gathered all of the elements needed to start the exciting research process! Whoohooo! I started off by examine different magazines that are our topic. 

Tigerbeat

"Tigerbeat" was a must-have magazine in the 1990's - early 2000's. From celebrity gossip, to fashion and more, "Tigerbeat" was the most popular read for teens. As time went on, this beloved magazine slowly faded away. Although it's no longer as popular, my group members and I are still gaining inspiration from "Tigerbeat" because of its amazing contents that resemble what we want in our spreads.

Teen Vogue

"Teen Vogue" is just like the magazine "Vogue", but for a younger target audience. This magazine is all about fashion. In our magazine we are creating, fashion is not our main focus, but will definitely be included. Because of this, we will examine "Teen Vogue" spreads.

Seventeen

"Seventeen" magazine resembles our aim for our magazine. From celebrity gossip, to fashion, to DIYs, and more, I will be thoroughly examining as many spreads of "Seventeen" as humanly possible.

Works Cited

Ember, Sydney. "Tiger Beat Magazine Is Revived With a New Vision." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Aug. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2017. <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/business/media/tiger-beat-magazine-is-revived-with-a-new-vision.html?_r=0>.

Johnson, Zach. "Ariana Grande Has Fallen Out of Touch With Her Father." E! Online. E! News, 29 July 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2017. <http://www.eonline.com/news/564056/ariana-grande-covers-seventeen-magazine-and-reveals-she-s-fallen-out-of-touch-with-her-father>.

Pittman, Taylor. "Gigi Hadid On Her New Fame: 'I Try To Take It Day By Day'." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 06 Feb. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2017. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/06/gigi-hadid-teen-vogue_n_6633208.html>

Now that my group and I have decided on a Teen Lifestyle Magazine, we can now blast off with ideas! 

Target Audience: Because we are focused on a Teen Lifestyle Magazine, it shouldn't be a shocker that our target audience is directed at Teens. With more specifics, we will be target teen girls currently in high school.  

In our magazine, we want to focus on creating a place for teen girls to look whenever they need advice, inspiration, a laugh, and a place to escape boredom.  Since I fall under the target audience, I will be able to add input on what a typical teen girl would enjoy in a magazine. “Relatable” will be an escape from reality will lighthearted contents. As a group, we have decided to steer away from any negative elements, and only focus on positivity.

“I think the foremost quality – there’s no success without it – is really loving what you do. If you love it, you do it well, and there’s no success if you don’t do well what you’re working at.” -Malcolm Forbes

     Yesterday, my group members and I decided to make a Teen Lifestyle magazine. I am extremely happy with this choice because this was the genre I was secretly hoping for!  We decided to choose this genre because it was the most interesting to us, and as Malcolm Forbes explained, you will be more successful at work if you enjoy it. 

We decided against a food magazine for several reasons. After plenty of research, we found out that it is extremely hard to take a perfect picture of food. It is necessary to have the right lighting, props, fast capture, proper editing, angles, and more! As said by The Serious Eats Team, “Taking great photographs of food is a hard-earned skill.” Another reason why we drifted way from food was because of the limited amount of diverse items we can include. It seems as though all food magazines include the same contents, and that is because there is nothing else to write about. On the other hand,  a teen lifestyle magazine gives a large basis to multiple ideas for our spread.We are super excited that the context of the magazine relates to us because we are teen girls, so we are giving our magazine the name "Relatable"!

BTW: When I told my mom that I was creating blog she was ecstatic since she wrote a bog when she was a teenager! With my mom's support, I know I am going to kill this project!

Works Cited

"Malcolm Forbes Quote." A-Z Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017. <http://www.azquotes.com/quote/553713>.

Team, The Serious Eats. "The Serious Eats Guide to Food Photography." Serious Eats. N.p., 04 Mar. 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2017. <http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/beginners-guide-to-food-photography.html>.