The end of semester is nearly upon us, which means this project is nearly due!

I have been thoroughly enjoying working on this project, being able to use and expand my knowledge of something I love and put it out there for someone else to use has been really fun and rewarding!

I have solved my design problem, as there are so many templates out there for putting together brochures, I am using one of those as a base and then customising all of the design aspects to suit my needs and to make it more interesting! This has challenged me to try new things and grow my design skills a little bit!

I have almost finished my first guide, and I am looking forward to my next one!

So time is starting to run out and it’s time for another update on my project.

I have been working on putting together my itinerary plans in an easy to understand way. For my DC guide, I have decided to include a map to help outline the route that the plan follows.

The plan so far for DC is:

1. Start the day at the white house, bright and early around 8:30 am
2. Walk from the white house towards the Washington Monument
3. After reaching the washington monument, turn in the direction of the WWII memorial
4. Follow the length of the reflecting pool towards the Lincoln Memorial
5. Enjoy a walk towards the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
6. Visit the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial
7. Walk to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
8. Walk or take a bus or a taxi (depending on how you’re feeling) back to the national mall
9. Find lunch at a food truck along the national mall or in a food court at on of the many museums around
10. Speaking of Museums, pick one or two to visit – our recommendations are National Museum of American History, National Museum of Natural History and National Air and Space Museum
11. Walk down to the Capitol building – we highly recommend reserving a free tour ahead of time for the latest tour of the afternoon – don’t forget to arrive early!
12. If you still have some energy left, take a walk through the US botanic garden
13. Lastly, if time allows, a trip to Arlington cemetery will probably require a bus or taxi ride – but if you’re up for it, you’ve ticked almost everything off the list of things to do in DC!

So there you have it – an action packed exhausting itinerary for if you only have one day to spend in DC!

My main concern is addressing how to make this information look good, because although the concepts were good in my head – I need to find a way to make the design look good. Because I’m not an artist or designer, I think this will be my main issue to work on going forward.

• What does research try to achieve that makes it different from a creative activity? Research typically requires some kind of methodology. Why is this important? Can creative work itself be classified as research itself or does it need some extra content presented around the creative work? If so, what format should this take and what should it cover? (Edmonds, E. (2007). Editorial: Research on and from within Creative Practice. Leonardo, 40(4), 318.)

Research can be creative and creative projects can be or be part of research. Commonly, research and creativity are not considered to be two things that go hand in hand, but through certain avenues such as practice based research, the two work together. Art can be described as ‘Fundamentally a research process’ (Edmonds, 2007), as artists try new things, and review the results. This is an interesting way to look at creativity and art, as the process is essentially research, and the outcome being the art or creative piece. In practice based research, it is common for an exegesis to accompany the creative work in order to better explain the research process and outcomes, which is very important, because by itself, an artwork or creative piece is very hard to analyse as a piece of research. As an example of this, Dawn Mannay wrote about how in her Counselling class, every member was asked to bring in a collage that represented them, and explained that a lot of information was gained by seeing a visual representation of a person, and that a lot of information can be drawn from this in a way that purely verbal communication cannot always draw this information.(Mannay, 2016) Although the creative work does stand alone, it is the accompanying work that really helps an audience to understand it as research. The importance of methodology in research is usually based on the way researchers use their reasoning, it is equally important in creative and practice-based research. In many ways, ‘knowledge can be advanced by means of practice’ (Edmonds, 2007), and this way of producing research has opened up doors for many different disciplines. Practice-based research and study also allows for a collaborative effort, something that is invaluable in a creative space. Practice-based research in the creative space has led to thing such as online design tools where interior designers have the ability to place things within a space without physically being in the space or having the items. The practice of doing this within itself is practice based research in a way, trying things out and seeing what works, and then fixing and changing what needs to be altered. Research typically aims to achieve a very specific goal or answer a very specific research question, which traditionally creative work does not always. Research is traditionally thought of as something that scientists do in a lab, but the creation of practice-based research has allowed for the creative sector to research using the tools and methodologies that already apply to their field, but come up with a research outcome in the process, instead of having to use tools and methodologies that are not relevant to the field in which the research is being done. Using the tools and methodologies of their field allows researchers in creative areas to be at the forefront of innovation in their industry, achieving this whilst doing research, instead of doing the research and then producing creative work allows them to know whether or not the research they have done is useful first hand. The differences between creativity and research seem very vast at first, but the idea of practice-based research has allowed the two to combine the most useful parts of both to achieve research outcomes.

References

Mannay, D. (2016). Visual, narrative and creative research methods. London: Routledge.

I swear I have been working on my project!

As I am pulling together travel guides, I have been picking locations to include in these. I wanted to make my guides different and special as I am hoping they will really have something different to offer travellers, and if I were to expand the concept, that it could really be something that could be monetised. My way of doing this is by creating ‘Do it in a day’ guides, a how to guide on how to do the hot spots of a city (or part of a city) in a day!

My plan at the moment is to produce ‘DC in a Day’ (Washington DC) and to do sections of New York in a day ‘Midtown Manhattan in a Day’. If I have time I would love to expand these to include other places, but at this stage I don’t want to overwhelm myself by putting too much on my plate. I chose these cities as I think they are two places where I would have really appreciated a guide like this! As I have been to these places recently, I have experience that I can share and use to make my guide stand out!

I do think that there is a real opportunity to expand this concept to include video guides, but as I don’t have the budget or time to jet set back to the USA, I think a PDF will have to suffice!

• What role do the arts and culture play in developing community? Find an example of a creative community and discuss what created or maintains it? (Charles, C., & Samples, B. (2004). Coming Home : Community, Creativity and Consciousness. Fawnskin, CA, USA: Personhood Press. 35 – 46).

The arts and culture play a huge role in developing community and bringing people together. As an example, the world of musical theatre has been bringing people together literally and figuratively for many years. YouTube is a great example of how the creativity of many different people has been used to develop community of creators and of fans. The concept of people being able to communicate from all corners of the world by commenting, sharing and actively participating in this helps to form a community. In this sense, ‘community requires a perception of belonging and supports a sense of identity’ (Charles & Samples, 2004) and the idea of associating ones self as a fan or creator in this new online space brought a sense of community and this has brought a whole new wave of events such as conventions where fans and creators alike can interact it the ‘real world’ space and take the online community and make it real. ‘Community requires participation and commitment’ (Charles & Samples, 2004), this is also true, as the people who interact with other fans and creators on YouTube and other social media sites tend to feel as though they are more part of a community and that there are other people they can talk to who are also part of this community. The creators also find that the participation and commitment factor is a huge thing for them in terms of being part of a community. If creators are committed and upload on a regular basis and participate by interacting with fans, they receive benefits in return, such as greater recognition throughout the creator community and also the monetary and exposure opportunities that come with being a committed content creator.In this case, arts and culture are being showcased in a more digital format, but in a way which creates communities in both an imagined and real world environment. These communities are still maintained, although they may shift towards favouring different creators at different times, the idea that YouTube can create and maintain these communities has continued. These communities started when the internet gave people the power to connect with and communicate with people they have never met and maybe will never meet, and are maintained on the same basis. This creative community also inspires more and more people to become involved and to start their own channels and show off their own creativity. Though for some YouTube becomes their career, for others it is a community of people who listen and understand, for some it is new friends, or a creative outlet and overall creates a sense of community that all began on the internet, and is not a community in the most traditional sense of the word, but it works somehow. In this way, arts and culture (especially digital) have played a huge role in developing and maintaining communities, especially among people who would not have been able to communicate before.

Coming up with a ‘creative’ project idea is proving to be way harder than I thought. I’m not a typical ‘creative’ in that I’m not a graphic or interior designer, I don’t study art (I can’t draw to save my life) and I don’t know how to think of what I do as creative.

Public Relations is quite creative when I think about it, you really have to think on your feet and come up with different concepts and ideas to fit the different kinds of clients. I also have a strong passion for events and for travel. I know that between all of these things I can surely come up with something that is creative, but for now here are a few rough ideas.

• A PR campaign focused on drawing students to ECU
• An advertising campaign focused on drawing customers to a travel company

We’ll see how we go!