Creativity & Genre

             Creativity plays a crucial role when it comes to embarking upon a new endeavor in a field ripe with choices. Creativity allows oneself to explore all the choices available and discovery which choice suits them in that situation best. It takes bravery to allow your mind to be creative and think outside of the box knowing there is the possibility of your ideas not being successful in the end. In the Ted Talk, “The Theory of Creativity” Duncan Wardle discussed how the opposite of bravery is referred to as cowardness, but as conformity (2018). In order to be creative, one needs to break away from the beaten path and conformality of society and create a new way of thinking. Based off what I discovered about myself during the “New Introductions” activity I need to stray away from the confirmative way I have been thinking. I found it somewhat difficult to complete this activity after I was about halfway complete with it.  Although some of my answers were more creative than others, this made me realize how used to thinking uncreatively I have become. In the article, “An Interview with Ron Beghetto: Subtle Nuances of Creativity in Learning and Life” Shaughnessy discusses how creative self-efficiency is a subcategory of creative self-confidence (2020). I believe I made be lacking in creative self-efficiency due to the fact I lack in creative confidence. Prior to completing my portfolio this is something I will need to work to improve. Improving my creative self-efficiency will aid me in completely the portfolio not only in a timely manner but also to the best of my ability.  

As time moves on and I gradually work my way to completing my portfolio project, my ideas for my genre has grown to be more specific. At first, I was not sure what genre magazine I would like to create. After researching magazines, I came to the conclusion to base my magazine off the concept of food. This is still a very broad topic and in order to differentiate from existing food magazine I need to zero in one a specific aspect of food and a particular target audience. I conducted research on two current and successful food magazines. The first magazine, Food and Wine was on the more traditional side when compared to bon appétit. bon appétit has a younger, more modern look to its magazines. I think I would like to carry over the youthfulness in Bon Appetite and incorporate it into my magazine. The magazine I have envisioned in my mind has more of the healthy lifestyle type of food including aspects such as calorie intakes and meal prepping.  My target audience of course would be a younger person that takes interest in eating healthy. I feel as though Food and Wine has more of an older audience made from those that prefer not to change their old ways of cooking and eating.