7 Mastheads!

Creating My Own Masthead

I have been spending a great deal of time trying to create my own masthead for Velocity magazine. At first I was advised to create something that had pattern and texture. Possibly something with tyre tracks. I decided that before I went ahead with this idea that I would create a few initial ideas on Illustrator. They're definitely not anything solid, but simply a series of ideas that I might consider for my project. Here are a few images of some of the mastheads that I created. 

As can see, none of them are particularly interesting, however there are a few that I am looking to develop. I've been looking at contemporary magazines such as 1883, Varoom and Popshot so I can get a better idea of the sort of masthead I should be aiming for. Here are a few examples of the sort of mastheads by the magazines that I mentioned. 




One of my tutors has suggested that I go with something that contains tyre tracks and patterns so I went ahead and rode my bike over a sheet of A4 paper. Here's the result of my experiment. 

Those are the patterns that I ended up with and then coloured on Photoshop and illustrator in order to make them look more defined. I was definitely happy with the results of my patterns. The next task was to actually make them into some sort of masthead. I wanted to create something interesting and grungy. I also wanted my masthead to look almost abstract but still readable. I used illustrator to create a clipping mask with my font and this was my result. 

This is the result I ended up with on the first try. I wasn't very happy with the way it turned out due to its bland and plain appearance. I would have preferred it had a more vibrant texture. So, I experimented with colour and moving the words around tyres to give it a more abstract appearance. Here's what I ended up with. 

I was reasonably satisfied with the end result, however, I couldn't visualise any of the designs as an actual masthead for a professional and contemporary magazine. They weren't as vibrant and exciting as I would have liked them to be. Nevertheless, I did enjoy working with colour and texture. I've decided to leave this series of experiments and try something else instead.