Designing my masthead

These are examples of conventional mastheads, as I recognised when doing my magazine research and they are all similar to mine in the way they don't strech across the whole cover unlike Rolling Stone and Billboard. They all used readable, plain fonts, although Clash is the exception with it's graphically altered part and lowercase letters, which is it's uncoventional twist. I believe it works well, but I think for my name and genre of music, I should stick to a smart look and font. I may use the style of Q and Spin, separating their mastheads from the rest of the cover, it somehow seems to cement their image and make them instantly recogniseable. Logos are arbitary/symbolic signs and therefore don't have to look anything like a real magazine but their meaning is culturally learned and I believe how they look is a big part of how well they represent the magazine reputation. I think I'd prefer a crisp, smart, up to date style so as well as using a box to separate my masthead I'll use a sans serif font. Q and Spin's logos are very similar but I think Q looks much more classic, therefore looking as if it's aimed at an older audience, so sans serif like Spin is definitely the way to go.

Using dafont.com I chose some fonts that I like and convey the right sense to my reader. They are all pretty bold to make sure they stand out from the thinner coverlines. These include;
I used different colours so it's easier to reference them when talking about them. I picked a range of fairly plain fonts, however some with an unconventional twist. The red, green and light blue are just simple, readable fonts, only slightly different in style, but they are very fitting to the convention of a readable font for everything. The orange is also the same, however it was just an experiment with the lowercase font, however I don't think it is as aesthetically pleasing. I think I would prefer to go beyond the average convention of readable fonts for everything, but not up to the level of Rolling Stone.

The four bottom ones (dark blue, dark purple, purple and pink) are all subtly a bit different, encoding the way my magazine is a bit different to all the rest effectively. They all have an individual element, mostly on the B's , which I quite like, however I don't think they convey the strength and power of my name. It is starting to become an important concept to me that I want my magazine to show strength and power like my inital thought and I don't think the thinner, linear fonts do this very well.

The yellow and turquoise are those that are a bit more unconventional in the pack. I like them because of this, but I don't think either of them take the developing of the convention so far that it just doesn't work. They show that strength I want, yet I think the yellow one is quite stiff and harsh with sharp edges, which I think could easily form an abberant reading. The turquoise one however is thick, so conveys power, however it still looks squishy and comfortable because of it's less linear style. It is more of a script, which is unlike the other mastheads in similar genres of music magazine, but I think it shows that important idea that pop music is not something that will sit in the background, it stands up to be counted as a real genre, andI think it shows it very well. Coincedentally the colour I think works very well too, as it could fit in with the chosen colour scheme off my questionnaire well while still acheiving that fresh contemporary look, like that Spin magazine selection I looked at, which I think is an important element to keeping pop "pop" while giving it credibility. It's also similar to that of chewing gum packets, making it a recognised code which will instantly give it a fresh minty vibe, and can also subtly play on the term "bubblegum pop".

Using the chosen font, colour, and box style I made this;

After practicing and playing on Photoshop I altered it very slightly with some layer effects, like a very subtle gradient overlay, satin effect and outer glow. I think as I become more familiar with these parts of photoshop I'll be able to make a mroe professional look. I also included that slogan I came up with on the spur of the moment, which will probably be subject to change;