Masthead Ideas For Plantsbrook School Magazine

I used Adobe Fireworks to create various different ideas for a masthead for a Plantsbrook school magazine. I have used many different affects and used various different fonts and font sizes. I have tried to stick to the Plantsbrook school colours, red and black, in all of my different design ideas. The final masthead that I chose to use for my school magazine was the red and black box with 'PB' written in them, I chose this design because it was the most eye-catching as well as being the most sleek and contemporary.

Denotated NME Magazine Front Cover

The masthead “NME” is situated in the top left-hand corner of the cover in order to catch the reader’s attention and inform them of the magazine’s actual name.

In the picture Eminem’s eyes are situated on the right of the masthead because they draw the reader’s attention to the whole picture. The reader is then likely to follow the line of his body down to the headline.

The headline is in big capital serif-style font white letters with a red stroke on a black background which makes it extremely eye-catching. The headline is designed to be the third thing that the reader sees after the masthead and picture.

The strapline below the headline reads "the comeback that's stunned the world" and is designed to add extra detail to the headline and explain what the main feature is about in slightly more detail.

The visual syntax is then supposed to shift to the column on the left-hand side and the use of different font sizes is designed to emphasis what the stories are actually about and to persuade someone to purchase the magazine.

There is a starburst in the top right-hand corner which explains that this edition of the magazine is a "T in the Park Review Special", this is again designed to lure the reader in and to persuade someone to purchase the magazine for this particular feature.

Denotated Q Magazine Front Cover

During our media studies lesson we denotated a Q magazine front cover. We labelled features such as the masthead, headline, picture, pull quotes, lure and the banner. We then went into detail and explained why the front cover was designed and set out like this and what all the different features are for.

Q Magazine Front Cover