Travel brochure: The Caspian sea!

Criterion A, B, C and D

Criterion A, Inquiring and analyzing

Introduction

I have been instructed to create a travel brochure using a suitable software. During my travels across the world, I have been impressed when encountering the shores of the largest lake in the world, the Caspian sea.

Design situation 

As a travel agent, I am more partial to leading my clients towards beautiful places which are not frequently visited by travelers. I wish them to enjoy a memorable time alongside their friends and family. I would prefer to suggest multiple places to visit, but I only have a time span of three weeks to complete this brochure, so I will focus on one location and form a travel itinerary.

My site of choice is the monumental Caspian Sea, associated with the Central Asian, European and Middle Eastern countries of, Iran, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia.  The specific country I am focusing my research on is Iran. Chulus is a city with a population of 44,000, with 12,000 families situated in the North Iranian Mazandaran province.  The roads to reach the destination are equipped with unbelievable sights. Snowy mountains through the whole year round, the feeling of Antarctica will arise! A few hours down from Tehran comes beautiful green mountains covered with the freshest pine trees. Villages to spot perched on Rocky Mountains are home to nature’s eagles swooping majestically above. Upon arrival at the city, you are greeted with beautiful fresh weather filtered by the outstanding number of trees all along the low mountain covered skyline. The highest peak in Chulus is the Āzād Kūh, directly translated into the Azad mountain.  A quick walk down the road, and you arrive at the exalted hiking mountain. Reach the top, and you get the most comprehensible view of the nearby Caspian sea! If you choose to stay right by the sea, enjoy your stay at one of the foremost beautiful hotels along the shore. Listen to the melodic sound of the nature’s large array of wildlife from wild birds, such as peacocks, parrots and peasants! The sound of the waves crashing against the shore in a relaxing manor or relax on the beach with the sun shining down on you. Have the best experience shopping at designer boutiques just a few steps away from the sea side, and go on horse rides at the wildlife reserve park. Restaurants and fine dining accompanied with live music lie just a few minutes away from the city center, or just have a quick stop at a luxury fast food restaurant, or maybe even catch a view of martial artists training on the beach! In the winter, take a ski trip on one of Chulus’ local mountain ranges! Fishing in the sea is also a great sport to practice, as it will provide health, cleansing of the lungs (like hiking or trekking) and great entertainment and sense of accomplishment! Head deeper into Iran and find the mysteries that lie waiting to be unsolved in the humid, forest green jungles!

Layout of the brochure:

 -I will be using the Microsoft Desktop Publisher software to create my brochure, with the brochure template/basic layout based of the trifold brochure, but will be adding on one extra fold in order to reach the minimum of four pages. I have chosen this design as it is a simple unique design that I will be able to customize it to fit the theme that I will be aiming for on each page. The whole brochure will be an itinerary with each page being a stage of the planned trip. On planned tourist trip days, prices will be included. On free days, prices will be written for reference. The first page I want will be an introductory page, explaining the city. Facts about it and the local weather, temperature, sea level and temperature etc. It will discuss the local traditions and a brief persuasive paragraph discussing what the north ahs to offer.

-The second page will be a page which describes beautiful snowy locations and will include icy blue, light pictures of the snow covered mountains that can be spotted on the road to Chulus. A ski resort, and the peak of the mountains and the mountainous roads to be driven on by the tour bus and passengers. The third page would be the page describing the journey upon arrival at Chulus. It will include facts about the tree covered mountains, nature and wildlife to be spotted and information about the luxury hotel accommodation situated upon the shores of the beach of the Caspian Sea. Information about the hotel will also be included. The pictures will be saturated to give the main colour green a more vibrant tone. This page will be themed green. The fourth page will cover two days and give top destinations about hiking routes and horse rides in the large nature reserve park. It will also recommend fine dining and shopping. The fourth page of the brochure will cover the fourth and fifth day, including information about the fun fairs located on the beach and great places to go shopping for luxury brands. The fifth page will describe the journey home.

-Some keywords that will captivate my audience will be; monumental, majestic, captivating, relaxing, healthy, luxury, shopping, vibrant, nature and wildlife and more… Each picture will have a caption that will not only both intrigue the tourists but amaze them with the beauty that Iran has to offer. Each page will have approximately two paragraphs of 175 words describing and persuading the tourists to book with my company. Each page will house at least 4 saturated pictures to match the theme. Depending on the theme of the page, whether ice and snow or warm colored autumn leaves will come with a fitting background to bring the pictures, text and all in all page together. The text will be written in font size 11 in the font TIMES NEW ROMAN. The shape of the brochure will be a 4 paged foldable rectangular brochure, measuring about 25cm in length.

Design brief

What I will include:

-Population: 44,618 as of 2006, with 12,791 families

-Local weather (months annually) Winter: up to -10 degrees Celsius, and even colder on the mountains with it being up to -15 degrees Celsius. Spring: still chilly, around 10 degrees Celsius to 15 degrees Celsius. Summer: can get quite warm with peaks of up to 30 degrees Celsius. Autumn: cool again, below 30 degrees to around 20 degrees Celsius!

-Travel itinerary, located on each page. Each page will describe a different day of the one week trip to Chulus. Information on the Azadi hotel located on the beach of the Caspian Sea. Pictures (more than three each page). Restaurant recommendations and locations of designer stores. Location of nature reserve park and information about the best times to go. Lots of persuasive language and bossy verbs.

Global context

-I will explore ways in which I discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values. Also, they ways we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity. In this case, I am exploring and introducing new cultures to and with my classmates and exploring and improving on my technological creativity by creating a captivating brochure.

ATL Skills – Creative thinking, communication and information literacy.

I will think creatively by designing a brochure. I will also be able to adjust the saturation, contrast, brightness etc. in order to captivate my targeted audience (tourists, preferably adult professionals.) I will communicate effectively on my brochure when I caption images, provide information on locations and the itinerary. I am also currently communicating by writing criterion A. I will also communicate a persuasive emotion through the language used in my articles and by communicating with my teacher and peers on my blog. Information literacy comes in with researching, planning and designing my brochure using the desktop publisher software. This whole task is information literacy.

Research pictures:

The calming sunset photographed from the shores of the Caspian sea

North Iranian snow covered mountains snowy all year round, perfect for an extremely chilly ski trip!    

The soft and shores of the Caspian Sea at sunset, a splendid view accompanied by warm tones of pink, orange, blue and yellow

Martial arts training camp located on the Caspian shores

The mountainous road on the way to Chulus

Cool beach water

The beautiful orange views that lay untouched, but lead on by a road in autumn. Marvellous architecture!

Criterion B:

Planning!

Reflection: 

Reflection for criterion B:

This is the reflection: I believe I have organized my planning very well but could add more color and have drawn it by hand which enables me to add more creativity and made my designs more detailed. I started off by planning a draft on paper with a pencil and eraser, then printing different captions, titles, headings and picture spaces then folding a piece of paper 4 times to make it like a brochure. I cut and suck the pieces to form the final plan! I could have also completed this with the computer in order to make use of more advanced technological skills, but I was able to successfully create a neat and organized brochure. 

Criterion A:

References!

Websites: 

-Wikipedia. 2017. Caspian Sea. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea. [Accessed 29 April 2017].

LiveScience. 2016. Caspian Sea: Largest Inland Body of Water. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.livescience.com/57999-caspian-sea-facts.html. [Accessed 21 April 2017].

Worldatlas. 2015. Caspian sea map. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/caspiansea.htm. [Accessed 29 April 2017].Worldatlas. 2015. Caspian sea map. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/caspiansea.htm. [Accessed 29 April 2017]. Wikipedia . 2013. Iran, Chulus . [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalus,_Iran. [Accessed 29 April 2017]. Trip Advisor . 2017. Tourism, Culus, Iran. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g946419-Chalus_Mazandaran_Province-Vacations.html. [Accessed 29 April 2017]. 

Criterion D 

Karim M's response -_-

Francesca's response

Khanda's response

Azaan's response -_-

Heidi's response 

Reflection for surveys:

The first response from Karim muntasser WAS NOT positive. I think he was fooling around because he said everything needed to be improved. It would be better if he actually put informative and genuite legitamate answers. Also, he used abbreviations which all people may not be able to understand if they happen to come accross my blog. 

Francesca was very supportive with her anwer and maybe a bit biased! It is fine though because I learned that out of all the Caucus countries, she would much rather visit Iran. Khanda's response was very much appreciated and helpful as she is from Iran and I really wanted to know the opitnions of a native on their city. Azzan's response was the least biased and most helpful, and Heidi's response was helpful too. 

Final reflection: During the task of planning and researching information and the layout of my brochure, I created  my veryown draft with no information, only captions and spaces. I would be better if I started out with some information on the draft in order to help guide me more when creating the final version. Also, I would have used more technological skills if I would have designed it on the computer, but I think that it is ok because I managed to print and stick captions and items for the layout in order to result in a neat and organized final product. When it came to actuallu making the brochure, I did not require to research more information to include, although I did need more images. I did not select and save enough images when originally researching my brochure, which is an element I could later work on.  I managed to follow the layout, not fully, but enough to notice the similarities. I should have tested my layout with some information to see if it would all have fit instead of just estimating.  managed to successfully theme different pages of my brochure to fit the iternary by using different filters. I also tested out different types of brightness, sharpness, saturation and contrast. My overall brochure and responses looked aesthetically pleasing, but as Miss Veena said, I wrote too much information which may divert the travelerrs attention to a different direction. My reflections were generally good but I could maybe add my name and contact details as well as less information as the responses said.