1. AS Media Studies
Foundation Portfolio: Music Magazines
Mastheads and Font Design
The masthead of a music magazine can be one of the most important selling
points of the magazine. It can reflect the mood and attitude of the writers, the
musical style or genre covered within its pages and the lifestyle of its target
audience.
The words used in mastheads can simply be grouped in word classes such
as a nouns, verbs or nouns and adjectives together. Sometimes they may
contain prepositions (words like out, in, up, over) They may contain a play on
words, or a pun, or are they are often within the lexical field of music, or are
words associated with music. Often they use onomatopoeia or words derived
from sounds. They may also be acronyms, for example New Musical Express
is abbreviated to NME. Very often, they use slang, like ‘Vibe’ and ‘Mojo’.
An example:
Metalhammer
In this example “Metal’ is an adjective describing a hard, shiny object. It is
also within the lexical field of musical culture, as metal is a genre of music.
Hammer is a noun, naming a heavy, industrial object. Therefore the
compound noun ‘Metalhammer’ when used as a masthead attracts fans of
heavy metal music.
Consider each of the mastheads below and make notes on:
1. Word classes used (nouns/verbs/adjectives)
2. Lexical field, or how they give connotations of musical culture
3. How the masthead attracts the target audience, with the use of Sans
Serif or Serif fonts, size, letter spacing, colours or any other design
features.

2. Q magazine uses a play on words within its mast head. For example, it
symbolises an artist’s cue to start singing, a queue to get into a gig etc. By the
‘Q’ being in a serif font it shows that the magazine is formal an aimed at a
older target audience.
The mast head KERRANG! is in onomatopoeia, the use of a bold sans serif
font edited with a smashing effect makes the magazine seem exciting. The
mast head mimics the sound of an electric guitar, symbolising the music
featured within the magazine.

3. Task 2: In pairs, try to think of as many words as you can which are related to
music. Write them below. They can be to do with genres, styles, musical
trends or the equipment you listen to music on. Try to use words which are
contemporary, or words which you use when talking about the music you
enjoy, particularly slang.
e.g.: Download, Soundwave, Urban, i-NDIE, RnB, Dub Step, UK Funky,
Grindcore, Thrash, Punk, Electro, Techno, Drum and bass, Tenor, Alto,
Soprano, Bass, Orchestra, Bhangra, Classical, Baroque, Irish jig, Reel,
Boogie woogie, Jazz, R’n’B, Alternative, Metal, Riverdance
Choose at least three examples and write them using use font styles and
colours which match the style projected by the word. For example the
compound noun:
Download
in a plain sans serif ariel font is much better when capitalised:
DOWNLOAD
DOWNLOAD
using OCR A Std Bold
DWLA
ONOD
With condensed spacing and coloured red, 36pt

4. Task 3. Choose your best examples and create your mastheads in photoshop
Sync
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