Stephanie Helms
Freelance: Atlanta Magazine Travel Ads
I came by my travel writing assignments for Atlanta Magazine by first working as a fact-checker and researcher for their parent company, Emmis Publications. Partnering with the State of Georgia, Emmis publishes a glossy index of events, accommodations, and destinations throughout the State: The Georgia Travel Guide.
I excelled at the research and editing assignments for the Guide. I made hundreds of phone calls to innkeepers, museum docents, and alligator tour guides, each with a story to tell about his or her own little corner of the State. I tried to weave some of that into the terse descriptions. Later, I got to reformat the guide to include different types of attractions not included in previous versions. I grouped similar types of attractions – such as Marinas or Wineries together in highlighted sections to create a slightly different reading of the information. Kevin Benefield, the Creative Director, enjoyed my lively take on the short write-ups, and asked if I wanted to try something longer.
The special travel advertising sections in Atlanta Magazine followed the same basic principle as the Guide; talk to people about their businesses, shops, and events, research for missing information, and tell people why they should visit. Unfortunately, I never got to do any crabbing off the coast of Florida, or horseback riding in the mountains, but I don’t think the readers could tell. These were much longer assignments than the short write-ups for the Guide, each ranging from one to 8 pages, and included photo assets that I found, and room for advertisements. For the longer sections, I have included both close-up views of copy, as well as examples of full-page layouts to give viewers an idea of how the project looked. You can find full versions of the Florida and Holiday projects by following their respective links. They are included here as an example of my ad work with boutique print publications.
