Existing Mastheads

NMEOld NME

NME Rebrand - 2010

The most identifiable thing about NME’s original masthead is its bold red colour. Each letter is surrounded by a white outline and black surrounds the entirety of the name. The bold, sans serif font suggests that it’s for a young readership and gives it a modern look. The colours are commonly associated with rock, and you can tell by the rebrand in 2010 that the new masthead reflected the change in content also.

When NME rebranded, they opted for a minimalistic, bold sans serif font (not too different from the original). What was lost was the outline and the uniform colour. The colour of the masthead changed from issue to issue depending on the colour scheme the cover dictated. Not long before the rebrand, NME’s content had become less edgy and slightly more commercial (with cover stars such as Florence and Daft Punk). The magazine still offered a more alternative experience, but appealed to the masses with more mainstream content.

This year, NME rebranded again. This time, they combined the bold red of the original masthead with the simplistic design of the former. This could possibly to bring back a brand identity.

NME Rebrand - 2013

Q

Q’s masthead is slightly similar to the recently rebranded one of NME. The red background and white font seem to be a powerful colour combination.

Q also modified its image, but this was only slight and could be virtually unnoticeable.Although the colour scheme is the same, Q has made the red more vibrant. Over the years the masthead’s colour scheme has become more and more dominant throughout, not only the cover, but the entire magazine. The red is an important part of the magazine’s house style, and the vibrancy of the red could represent this. Furthermore, Q has acted similarly to NME in making the masthead appear more 2-dimensional. The shadow has been lost to create a very flat image. This allows the vibrant colours to ‘pop’ more and looks more modern (most brands are opting for a more 2D look. For example, Microsoft Windows).

Rolling Stone

Again, as with NME and Q, the dominant colour in the Rolling Stone masthead is red.Moreover, another similarity is that the dimension has changed, becoming more 2D over the years.

The font is serif, which is generally associated with an older audience (a sans serif font would have a more modern look). However, in this case I think it would represent the brand’s authority in the industry and reinforces the brand’s longevity (having been running since 1967).

Mixmag

The masthead for mixmag seems to follow some of the conventions of the other mastheads. The 2D nature of the text and the sans serif font create a modern feel. This is important for the genre (dance), which is intrinsically modern and constantly reinventing itself (sometimes channelling elements of sci-fi, e.g. Daft Punk).

The one thing that differs from the other three mastheads is the colour. Mixmag’s masthead is very similar to that of NME 2010-2013, which allows the magazine to change the colour of the masthead in relation to the cover each month.As Mixmag is a different genre to Rolling Stone, Q and NME, this could suggest that the colour red is effective for magazines of the rock genre (even if it is rock/pop).

Vibe

There is much similarity between Vibe and Mixmag’s mastheads. The sans serif font and changeable colour scheme are the two huge similarities between them.

The font of Vibe is very bold and the case of the letters does not seem to be uniform. The ‘B’ is capital and the ‘e’ is lower case. The ‘v’ is slightly slanted, which differs from the straightness of the other 3 letters.

As a whole, these techniques suggest that Vibe targets a younger audience, and the slightly incorrect grammar (wrongly placed capital/lowercase letters) contributes to an urban feel.