Creative Critical Reflection

Click HERE to access and watch my Creative Critical Reflection. 

Final Project

Click HERE to access my final project of my magazine Decadence. Enjoy! 

Almost Finished!

Hi everyone! I am really excited to say that I am almost finished! My double page spread is really coming together nicely. I am planning on taking a drive over to Miami to capture some really great pictures of the Miami skyline towards the afternoon/evening. I would really like to try to have both pictures of the scene during the day and the night when it is all lit up because I want to give myself the option of using both. I will insert the picture at the end, and continue to work on my story. It is coming along very well, I want to go to each of these restaurants and eat their dishes! I am going to change the part where I want to include a signature drink for each place because some of the restaurants do not have special drinks from their country. Instead, I am going include an appetizer, a main entrée, and a dessert. My article is fitting in with my theme of decadence and indulgence beautifully because the restaurants are just that. 

Italy: Il Gabbiano

Japan: Zuma

Greece: Mandolin Aegean Bistro

Cuba: Larios on the Beach

I am extremely eager to finally show you my magazine! I will be posting my final product on Sunday and I hope you all will leave comments letting me know what you think! I showed a few more of my classmates my pages today and they were blow away. It is such a good feeling knowing you created something really special. I feel like I achieved one of my goals of "wowing" my peers. Their expressions and reactions are worth hard work and effort I have put into every single detail. As well as my final product, I will also be posting a creative critical reflection (the third part of my project) on Sunday so you all can see my thought process and my reflection on this amazing journey of creating a magazine! 

Keep in touch!

Just a Little More Research

Hello everyone! Today I have been continuing research on each of my restaurants, looking up their top dishes, their reviews, and their traditions. I will incorporate all of these aspects into my article for each restaurant. I would like to include a description for each restaurant, why my audience should go there and, food wise, I want to exhibit the best entrée, drink, and dessert that represents each country the best. Even though it would be extremely ideal to have a photo of each item from each restaurant, it is just not feasible. I would also like to go out and get a picture of each restaurant, but that doesn't seem too practical for me right now either. However, what I can do, and what I want to do, is take a photo of the miami skyline and use this one picture for the background of my two page spread. This photo would symbolize Miami as a whole and how it is a pretty small city that has the world inside of it.

 I am aiming to capture a photo similar to this one: 

Miami Skyline

I think this is the best way to incorporate visuals for this part of my production because it gives my audience a broader view of Miami and it would represent each restaurant inside of the city. I am really hoping I get to capture a photo as good as this one that I am visualizing in my head, but if not I will come up with a plan B. 

Stay tuned readers! 

Two Page Spread Changes

Hello! I have made some minor changes regarding the layout of my two-page spread. I am still sticking with the fabulous topic of eating like a world-traveler, but I have decided to revise my previous choices into more logical ones. I am not going to make my title fill up the whole page, as I suggested I was going to, because it is a waste of space and it doesn't allow me to fully develop my article in just one page. However, I am still going to make my title rather large, it will still leave me enough room to expand on my topic. 

I also have changed the idea of categorizing my article by restaurants in different continents, instead I will go by country and the style of food. It makes more sense this way because I the style of food is more prominent than the continent it is from. For instance, I was not going to include the United States under North America, nor was I planning on using Canada or Mexico, because to me those aren't "World-Traveler" enough. While on the other side of this, we have Europe that has a handful of countries with excellent pallets, as well as Asia. This categorizing system by continent was just not uniform or symmetrical. Now I will group the restaurants by country and have two restaurants under each category. Below is my drafted list of my proposed restaurants and countries: 

• Italian: Il Gabbiano and Macaluso's
• French: db Bistro Moderne  and Cafe Bastille
• Greek: Mandolin Aegean Bistro and Pega Grill
• Columbian: La Moon Restaurant and Monserrate Restaurant Miami
• Brazilian: Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse and Boteco
• Peruvian: CVI.CHE 105 and Limon & Sabor 
• Argentinian: La Patagonia Argentina Restaurant and Fiorito
• Japanese: Sushi Siam and Zuma
• Vietnamese: Miss Saigon and Miss Saigon Bistro
• Indian: Bombay Darbar and Thali Indian Cuisine 
• Cuban: Versailles and Larios on the Beach 
• Caribbean: Clive's Cafe and Tap Tap Restaurant

After searching through the hundreds of international restaurants in Miami, I carefully selected two from the highest ranked style of foods people tend to eat the most. I tried choosing one restaurant that was more on the fancy side and one that was either a Café or a Mom and Pop restaurant. I wanted to go with both to give my readers an option and a happy medium depending on where they want to go and how much they want to spend. I am super excited to go more in depth on these restaurants and finish my two page spread!

Au Revoir!

More Brainstorming

Hello everyone! So today I researched more for my two page spread. I decided that I want to separate and categorize my two page spread by the 7 continents and discuss around 2-3 restaurants for each continent. I will explain how each restaurant brings something different to the table (literally and metaphorically) by picking out the best dishes and talking about the traditions they take part in according to which country they belong to. I would really like to go to each restaurant I choose after I conduct more to do interviews and to take pictures of either the scenery or the food.

As for the layout, I would like to use a really cool layout for the title page because I love the look of having a full page for the title. For the rest of the pages, I would like to use either 2 or 3 columns per page for the content of the restaurants. I am very interested in designs like these two layouts:

                                              

I am still going to need to research more restaurants and then I will start on my two page spread. As for an update on the rest of my magazine, I have continued to edit my cover page and put the rest of my cover lines. I am going to feature the table of contents that I have created for my project, but my table of contents for my full magazine is going to be about 6 pages.

For now I am going to finish coming up with ideas for my two page spread and start writing my article, I'm so excited! 

Two Page Spread Decisions...

So my main focus these days have all been about my two page spread for my magazine. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I am having trouble finding inspiration that really makes me go, "WOW" like my cover page and table of contents pages did. I am not stuck on the content of what I am going to write about because I have ideas in mind of a basis of what my article is going to be about. I want to write my article on, as I mentioned in my previous post, I want to write my spread on "How to Eat Like a War Traveler- in Miami." I chose to write about Miami instead of Fort Lauderdale for several reasons. After researching both cities, Miami was much more popular than Fort Lauderdale and it has a much larger variety of international restaurants. Miami is one of the most famous cities to travel to in America, so by including it, a majority of my readers will be familiarized with it, that is of course if they are not already local. I think that I can really do a lot with this story and can go in multiple directions for it. 

However, even though I have a pretty clear understanding of my story, my troubles lie in the hands of the layout and the design. I understand that I will write the story and pick out visuals first, but I enjoy knowing beforehand how I am going to create my layout. I really like working with different designs that catch the eye, so I am really trying hard to find some that interest me in doing so. 

I am not going to get discouraged because I know that I will find something and make something that I know I will love and my readers will love. I am really excited to write this story because Miami has every restaurant ethnicity you could imagine! I am thinking of categorizing my story either by the Continents, or by famous cities. Still undecided because I have to find more about the roots of each restaurant that I am interested in including in my spread. But the best part about all of these restaurants is that they maintain and capture my theme of savory and decadent food, as well as having the international flare I am looking for.  Also, it is great that the majority of these restaurants have a copyright free menu posted online, so I don't have to worry about asking for permission to include some of their meals. As for now, I will continue to research and explore plausible restaurants and layouts to utilize for my article. 

Keep posted everyone!


Citations: 
International Cuisine. (n.d.). Retrieved April 01, 2016, from http://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/dining/international-cuisine
Why Miami is One of the Best Cities in America for Travel. (n.d.). Retrieved April 01, 2016, from http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/2011/07/10/why-miami-is-one-of-the-best-cities-in-america-for-travel/