Masthead Research

As part of my research for music magazines i collected a variety of mastheads which are iconic to the audience. The masthead is an important aspect to the cover of a magazine and for the entire content of the magazine itself. The audience will look for the masthead when choosing a magazine to purchase, therefore the text must be clear, bold and unique. 

The masthead for NME is a simple and standard text style. The text is bold and capitalised to make it stand out on a cover. Being a red coloured text also makes it applicable for the audience because its a primary colour therefore it entices the eye of many people easily. Being a indie/rock magazine it is essential to have masthead that is simple because the covers tend to be stand out, therefore the title must be identifiable and simple to contrast. It is what makes it iconic. It is also an acronym which allows it to be abbreviated and identified easily. 

Kerrang using onomatopeia in its title to comply with the genre of music. The word 'kerrang' connotes a guitar smashing sound, which is relatable to the rock theme of the magazine. It is also in a black print which is a constant theme of kerrang magazines. It has an exclamation mark which suggests it is to be shouted out, and will stand out from other magazines.

Q magazine has a simple masthead logo, however it is iconic. The red background is striking and makes the white capitalised Q stand out. The font style is unique and makes it look more interesting despite it being just one letter. It is easily identified on covers because of the font size also.

We heart pop magazine is an example of the pop genre type text. It uses san serif font style to make it bold and fun. The logo surrounding the masthead is a speech bubble which is in relation to the genre of pop magazine as there are elements of gossip to be noticed in the content. The black print in contrast to the pink heart makes it stand out and gives the magazine the fun/bubblegum pop feel. The text being capitalised also gives it the element of gossip.