Analysis of Music Magazine Mastheads.

I really like the clash magazine masthead because of the way the letters all fit together. The name ‘clash’ makes you think of the sound of cymbals clashing together so the way the ‘a’ and ‘s’ are linked in a ‘smooth’ manner whilst clash doesn’t make you think of smooth and sophisticated.

The NME magazine masthead is very bright and colourful and uses a border to ‘fix’ all the letters together. By using a bright colour, NME have been able to advertise their spot colour from the first glance. By using an abbreviation they have been able to keep it short and snappy but by quoting underneath what the abbreviation means they have made it clear to their target audience. On a shelf, a magazine full of colour will attract readers rather than a dull and monochrome front cover. Readers will glance at the name of the magazine, to see what it is called, and a brightly coloured well designed masthead such as NME’s will stick in their mind.                      

Although Kerrang is created using no colour and is completely monochrome it works well because the letters of Kerrang have different lines going through the letters, breaking them up and making them more interesting. By blocking in all the letters with a black border the creators of the Kerrang masthead have made sure this will stand out from the rest of the magazine front cover or pages where it is placed.