House Style - Masthead Designs

By Deanna Hammond-Blackburn and Emma Hall

This design is striking, and the large V would be very recognisable, but the font isn't really suited for an indie/modern vibe of our magazine, and the large single letter is already a staple of the similar 'Q' magazine.

This design is a lot simpler, and could set up a theme throughout the magazine of having one letter in a different font. However it is a bit too simple, in that it might get lost on a cover, and wouldn't be automatically associated with the magazine if seen on its own.

This design is a lot more modern, with the thin font and slick backing, like at an expensive restaurant, which fits with our target audience, who have a bit more money than most. We chose to develop this further as our masthead:

 

This design further develops the previous design but this time using the preferred colour scheme from our audience surveys of purple. The lower case letters make the title sophisticated but not over the top, however, it is a bit difficult to read all in purple.

 

This serif font makes the title look quite sophisticated and would appeal to our target audience, however it isn't as modern or as simple as other mastheads. Having the first letter a different colour, though, is unique and subtle technique which gives the title a bit of life.

More development with the colour scheme here makes the title a lot more interesting and also clearer to read, the white lettering stands out against the black background, and also means we have combined the two chosen colour schemes from our target audience research, with black, white and purple, whilst the first letter being a different colour, gives the masthead an edgy, individual aesthetic which we seek to replicate throughout our magazine, without losing any sophistication and elegance. As this masthead design exemplifies all the qualities we wish to imbue into our magazines, we have chosen this one to be not only our masthead, but also to be the standard for our whole house style, using the same font and shade of purple throughout our magazines.