Inside Orlando
Fall 2018 - Spring 2019
My senior thesis, concluding my four years at the University at Buffalo, was a project decades in the making–a full-length print travel magazine, centered around my favorite destination: Orlando, Florida. Inspired by one of my favorite travel magazines, Attractions Magazine, Inside Orlando is a print publication that reports on and details the many attractions and offerings in Orlando. From news, rumors, and updates in the theme park community to vacation planning tips and attraction spotlights, Inside Orlando covers everything you need to know about what's new in Orlando, what's coming, and how to experience it. This project took everything I am passionate about and combined it into one massive effort–design, photography, journalism, travel, and the theme park industry.
The Brand
Development began by creating an identity for the magazine. I wanted to take the fun, exciting atmosphere of the award winning entertainment in Orlando and combine that feeling with the bright, warm sunshine and heat that Florida is known for. The color palette was chosen to invoke this exact combination of feelings, with bold, bright, and warm colors. I also wanted to create a modern look for the magazine, dependent on whitespace, bold pops of color, and large photographic features. Roboto was chosen as the magazine's typeface due to it's versatility, heavy contrast between weights, and overall sleek look.
The Cover
I wanted to keep the cover as clean as possible to emphasize the semi-minimalistic look I envisioned for this brand. This meant that only a single feature article headlined the cover, with the main pull of the magazine being the large photograph itself. The Inside Orlando logo sits at the top in a color combination eyedropped from the cover image to compliment the image's color scheme. The cover images are bold, large photographs that detail specific icons and feature significant negative space. I designed three covers initially for display, with a fourth spawning from a recent revisit of the project. The leftmost cover was the one utilized for the print portion of this project. With the exception of the rightmost Fall 2020 Issue, all cover photographs were taken by me, with other personal photography work appearing throughout the magazine on occasion as well.
The Advertisements
In order to mimic a professional magazine, I chose to incorporate mock advertisements for actual Orlando businesses in the tourism industry including MEI Travel & Mousefan Travel, IAAPA, International Heli-tours, Touringplans.com, Owners Locker, and Inside Orlando itself. This involved redesigning the existing logos of these businesses while also borrowing elements from their existing brand to allow for a seamless refresh.
The Magazine
The magazine is a celebration of the theme park capital of America. It is broken up into four sections:
The 411 – Updates on the inner workings of the magazine–what's new with the publication, its staff, and their online content.
The Scoop – All of the latest information on Orlando's premiere attractions, mainly the theme parks–what new attractions have opened, what new attractions are coming and when, construction updates, rumored attractions and their insider status, and the best tips for experiencing these attractions.
Features – A set of four feature articles that delve into the world of the theme parks. They explore the possibility of visiting the 13 premiere Central Florida theme parks in one day, the top 10 never built Disney attractions, the future of EPCOT with the inclusion of intellectual property at the forefront, and everything known about Universal Orlando's third theme park, Epic Universe (known then under the working title "Fantastic Worlds"), during its early stages of development.
The Spotlight – A deeper dive into Orlando culture, history, tourism, and hidden gems–hotels, restaurants, new attraction technology, the lost and forgotten, and the little details.
Thesis Statement
I identify myself in three ways—a dreamer, a traveler, and an artist. These three identities are the basis for each work that I produce. By combining photography and design, I create work that showcases my dreams, my travels, and my definition of art.
I derive my content from what I love most—the highest contender being my travels. Tourism has been my muse from a young age, with my heart falling for the ever-changing theme park and tourist capital of America: Orlando, Florida. The intense levels of creativity, imagination and detail that this world class tourist trap offers inspires me the way no beach or mountain ever could. My goal as an artist is to be a part of that creative environment and contribute in areas I excel in.
My interests lie most in photojournalism and print publications. I thrive on large-scale creative projects and collaboration. I see myself as a behind-the-scenes worker, and my audience being the general public. I want my work to invoke the public to do something—go somewhere, join something, watch something, or simply turn the next page. I want to be the pull to a larger entity, the eye-capture, the spark of inspiration. I want to bring my own level of creativity, imagination, and detail to the table and be the inspiration for the next up-and-coming artist, just as somebody, whoever it was, inspired me throughout my lifelong travels to Orlando, Florida.
As a dreamer, traveler, and artist, I present a work decades in the making—a print publication showcasing the magic that the Orlando attractions have to offer tourists. The publication features my own photographic and design work as well as my own journalistic writing using my vast knowledge of the various Orlando offerings. I create to inspire, and by combining photography and design I aim to inspire others through my own personal dreams, travels, and definition of art.