Masthead research and analysis

This is the masthead for the NME magazine, which would be placed on the cover of each of their issues. In this masthead, you can see that a simple white, bold sans-serif font has been used on a simple solid black background, with the iconic uppercase letters. This particular variant of the NME masthead possesses a three-dimensional effect created using simple white lines with black extruded sides; this will allow for the logo to stand out and, because of the originality of the design, will attract the reader to buy the magazine.

This is the masthead for the RollingStone magazine, which would be found on every issue of the magazine. In this masthead, you can see that a red serif font has been used with a white stroke, with the "R" and the "S" capitalised. In this masthead, there is the iconic three-dimensional effect on the text. To achieve this three-dimensional effect, a hard inner drop shadow is used within the text to bring out the effect. Moreover, a extruded text effect is achieved by using several text layers behind the main one with a striped pattern.

This is the masthead for the Kerrang magazine, which can be found on every issue of the magazine. In this masthead, you can see that a black, distorted serif font has been used on a transparent background, which represents the genre of music the magazine covers (rock music). The use of uppercase letters and exclamation mark reflects the type of music and the culture which surrounds the genre of music.

This is the masthead for the Alternative Press magazine, which can be found on the front cover of the magazine. In this masthead, unlike the other analysed, two different typefaces have been used. For "AP", a large, red, distorted serif font has been used for the abbreviation with uppercase letters. For "Alternative Press", a simple, black serif font has been used with wide spacing.

This is the masthead for the Classic Rock magazine, which can be found on the front cover of the magazine. In this masthead, the same typeface has been used differently on two occasions have been used. "Classic" has the same font but entirely capitalised with two stars either side, possibly to highlight the word "classic". "Rock", however, is shown differently as "RocK" which is used to wrap around the word "classic".