Week 28: Creative Mastheads for my Student Magazine

Today I have learnt about the importance of fonts within magazines and Graphic Design, we have been introduced into the fact that I now have to research into the font which I would be using for my masthead on my magazine front cover. On Wednesday I changed my font to a font within Photoshop which I believed would make the masthead more original, although the font I chose was Blue Highway Condensed Font, and the history behind this font was that it is used for road signs and does not send the right message for a student magazine, therefore I decided to change my font. The meaning behind the font is very important as if someone did look into the font which I had featured for my masthead and the meaning was not related to students as this is the magazine I am creating it would not make sense and is not linked in any way to students.
Justification of Font Chosen
Therefore I decided to research into my initial font idea which was the font of Dream Orphans, although the meaning behind this font was that it is a casual and homemade, which is not the message which I believe should be related to a student magazine which I am creating, therefore I found an extra font which had been adapted from Dream Orphans and is Dream Orphanage. The history behind this font is that it has been used within professional works and compared to Dream Orphans, this font is a lot more professional and bolder font, which I believe is a valid reason as to why this font is suitable as it is used within professional works such as magazines and graphic design. This font was from dafont.com, as these are free fonts and this does not break any copyright, therefore I am able to download the font as it is free and use it within my work, so I can then put the font into Illustrator to create a Vector Graphic which is better quality than a graphic within Photoshop.

Creating Masthead and Potential Logo
As I was using a free and existing font I wanted to still make the masthead unique and original, I have been shown how to create an original masthead on Wednesday with the different effects such as the different coloured text being overlapped to create an effect. Today I was shown how to make my Masthead unique and not just two words spread across the top of the magazine, therefore I had experimented with different designs with the font Dream Orphanage, below shows my different designs and I will continue to create different and possible designs for my masthead, but these are the mastheads which I have created so far for my magazine Students United. My favourite design is the S hanging onto the U, as this is an abbreviation of my magazine name and shows creativity, it is simple but effective for a masthead and logo.

Designs for my Magazine Masthead

I will continue to design my masthead and possibly find a font which clearly shows the meaning of Students, but I believe that the font I have and the designs I have created will appeal to students and that the meaning of Dream Orphanage is clear and that it is used within Professional works. I can therefore put the skills and knowledge I have gained from the Photoshop workshop on Wednesday with the skills I have learnt today to create my own, original masthead.