Mastheads

Mastheads

I used the website 'Dafont' when creating my masthead where I explored a range of different fonts, both suitable for my context and not.
Firstly, I decided that the name of my magazine would be 'REVOLUTION' (which I later changed) however I thought that when I was testing which fonts I liked most, I would type the name of my magazine to also make sure that it suited the word itself. Furthermore, I thought that I may replayed the 'E' with a '3' in order to make my title more unique and edgy to reflect the Indie style.

  The thing I liked most about this font was that it was American-styled as this looks interesting and appealing to the eye whilst linking to the fact that many music artists are American. This font was chunky therefore it would be legible from a distance away, important for a magazine. Additionally, I liked that there was a scratched effect on it because it almost looks like scratched vinyl, again linking to the Indie genre. One problem that may arise is that some of the letters such as 'V' and 'U' are faded slightly too much therefore if I placed my model's head over one of these, the title may not be so easily recognised as 'R3VOLUTION.'

Particularly, I like that this font is white with black rounded squares for the background as the contrast allows the title to really stand out. Furthermore, the font is chunky and will again be able to be read from afar so that the title stands out on the page. I love that the letters are not faded like in the previous font, but are scratched which looks edgy and appropriate for a music magazine. I also liked the idea of this font being on a license plate for my masthead, which would allow me to incorporate the '3' in replacement of the 'E'. However, I think that this may take a little too much attention away from my main image and perhaps take up more room than I would have liked.

 Again, this font is chunky, allowing it to stand out on the page and not get muddled into the rest of the text, making it clear as the masthead. Although the thing I like about this font more than some others is that it is darker; there is less white invading into the pigment. This makes it stand out more as a large font appealing to the eye. I also loved that the bottom of this font looked a little like a city sky-line because this linked to a possible front cover image of mine. This was a photograph of my band against a brick wall, which would have tied in nicely with this edgy font. However, this font was a little too ordinary because it was very uniform typography like stencils which juxtaposed the edgy style to Indie. Furthermore, I still liked the idea of each letter being separated in a box.

I did not like this font AT ALL because it was too loopy. Consequently, it was not easily legible and as a result, completely inappropriate for a masthead. the lettering was also too thin meaning that it would not stand out enough regardless.

The advantages of using this font would be that it is possible the chunkiest font, meaning that it would really stand out on my front cover. The black colour is also solid, emphasising this. I love that the white parts suggest where the light hits the word, giving it a 3D aspect. However, I think that it looked too much like a candy logo to represent the edgy side to Indie music. Also, it was a little too plain and boring to be used on the front cover therefore I decided against using this masthead.

Eventually, I changed the name of my magazine to 'HIJACKED' and in that case, the font would be extremely appropriate because it links to a glitch on a computer screen, reflecting the idea of something being altered and 'HIJACKED'.' I did really like this font however I thought that there were more interesting choices that were not just one plain block colour, despite the fact that this would make it stand out indefinitely.

This masthead actually reminded me of the font used for the film title, "Top Gun." I loved that the lines at each edge of the masthead framed it nicely which allowed easy differentiation as to where the masthead ends and the rest of the front cover starts. They also look like piano tiles, again linking to music. In addition, I loved that there were words written within the letters in a contrasting colour; it looked original and interesting without taking attention away from the main word...the title. On the other hand, the lettering was too thin and I preferred chunkier designs which would stand out more. Therefore I decided against this choice.

Originally, no matter what font I used for my masthead, I was going to add an image of a vinyl record to replace the 'O' in order to link with the edgy Indie music and Indie fans. Therefore, I loved that the 'O' in this masthead created this impression; the images of vinyl records may not have blended in with the rest of the font like this one does. Although, I did think that this was also slightly boring for an interesting music magazine front cover there is no unique background to the letters such as with the boxed edges in others. I did not use this font but I do like that it is very bold and stands out. Also, the lines of white mimic the look of rays of light, which would have again added depth to my page.

This is the font I ultimately decided to go with; each letter is bold, making the masthead stand out. Moreover, I loved that the lettering was both white and black because this created a great contrast and let the word stand out. The thing that I liked most was that each letter was separated with a square shape around it and these had different patterns whilst not taking attention away from the font itself. I think that this looked edgy and appropriate for an Indie music magazine.

 I designed my masthead in this way because my house style colours were shades of pink and purple. Therefore, I chose these bright colours in order to help my title stand out. I also chose to change the colours of the boxes behind the letters so that they contrasted more with the colour of each letter. For example, the black colour of 'A' and 'K' helped them to not look so boring and stand out against the background. The different colour backdrop for each letter really helped me when creating my front cover because nothing on the image could interfere with my masthead due to me controlling what was behind each letter. I think that the name was also better for my masthead because it was shorter in length, meaning that each letter could be increased in size to fill the width of the page. I think the masthead was a good size to be legible from  afar.

Ultimately I decided against the latter masthead because it made my page look too busy with many colours in the background image also. Due to this, I opted for a monochrome masthead which stood out more, fit my house style tighter and was easily legible against my image. I have still echoed a graffiti-style to appeal to my edgy target audience but the block black background makes the text easier to read and bolder-just like my target audience.