Creativity & Genre

 

Whenever doing anything remotely creative or innovative I never thought I was good at it. I would always say I didn’t have a creative bone in my body. I never considered how much the creative process is so crucial to working on a project. So, this week, my class and I spent several days discussing the importance of creativity and creative processes. By doing activities and corpus amount of research, I have been able to understand the importance and how to further incorporate this later in my piece.

            To begin with, as said before, I never thought or felt confident about my ability to be creative. According to “An Interview with Ron Beghetto: Subtle Nuances of Creativity in Learning and Life.” “creative self-efficacy is a specific type of creative self-confidence that helps shape more global beliefs about our creative abilities and identities” As stated by the article, that confidence or self-insurance is key to being successful in this type of project. Although I currently don’t have confidence in my creative ability, I must gain it by making process, receive feedback and encouragement (An Interview with Ron Beghetto: Subtle Nuances of Creativity in Learning and Life.) To build off that, according to the ted talk that my class and I reviewed, bringing in someone who has no idea about what you're working on can bring honest feedback and encouragement that can further aid me with my creative process.  Beyond that, with exploring my creativeness, I did a “describing myself” activity  You could describe yourself with books, favorite pairs of shoes, or even animals. I chose to describe myself using my favorite clothing items in my closet. I did better than I expected.

      Moving on, along with studying the specifics of the creativity my class and I did extensive research on our chosen genre and editors of magazines that fall into that genre. To start, I researched Jessica Pels from Cosmopolitan magazine. One thing that makes Cosmopolitan stand out creatively is the cohesiveness between the typography and the cover photo. Usually depending on the person featured on the cover and what they are wearing, the font and ties it all together making it visually pleasing. This type of typography is what I want to incorporate in my project. One thing that I did notice is that Cosmopolitan usually has one person or subject on the cover and the words are just an accessory. Personally, I would like to make my cover and photo both tell the story. Next, Dan Wakeford of People magazine. Much like the Cosmopolitan magazine, the words are the background of the cover photo. This isn’t what I would like to incorporate in my project because I would like the words and the photo to be one big piece of art instead of separate pieces. One thing that stands out to me is that unlike the previous magazine, they incorporate more than one photo. (main photo and a tinier photo). Another thing I didn’t like was how bland the typography was in this magazine. The font/color was barely cohesive with the photos. The cover line in this piece was very small and not very eye-catching even though that is the purpose of a cover line.

      Finally, my chosen genre would be “general interest”. I feel that this will be the perfect vehicle for my project due to that this will best tell my story. My vision for my project is something that will show all-inclusivity and something that everyone can relate to or participate in. Most magazines don’t do this and I want to be the first of many to convey my story.