Creating a suitable Masthead

Magazines and consumer goods and like any consumer goods they are brands which like any other brand need a logo. A magazine masthead. The masthead’s role is to be recognizable. In the sea of magazines on the newsstands you want your logo to standout. To be instantly recognizable. This is not an easy thing to do. That is why a logo is the most important element on the cover page. When designing a logo several things should be your concern. The logo should capture the publications character, attitude, it should fit the intended readership and the genre, it should be versatile too, so that it can be used in other occasions, like marketing materials. When working on a logo you should try tenths or even a hundred variations. When you find several that you like, you should work on its variations. The first, and obvious thing is to choose the proper typography. 

Is your publication a modern one, is it more traditional, is it urban or more conservative?   

When working on a masthead you should try numerous variations- it will take time! Is the name of the publication a long one or a short one? If it is a short one maybe you can make the masthead stand in the top left corner. If it’s a longer one and it has two words maybe they can be positioned one on top of each other and placed in the top left corner. If you ask yourself why the top left corner it is because when magazines are stacked on the shelves on the newsstand top left position is always visible, no matter how densely stacked the magazines are on the shelves and because of social conditioning around visual syntax.  If the name of the magazine is longer maybe you can make it in bolder type for more impact. It is always better to use different fonts for the logo than the ones you use for the cover headlines. Although the logo is not read it should be recognizable, and that’s why it should be different in type from the rest of the cover. As you can see, the options are endless. When you finally decide on several versions try it out on the page to see how it interacts with the images and general design of the cover. Sometimes you will see that a top left position does not work well, maybe the top centered position would be better.