Tabloids
The logo within the masthead is integral in terms of how the newspaper is viewed by the public. Red-top tabloids are easily identified on the shelves by their red logos with big white font within them.
Redtop tabloid logos follow conventions in that they always have a red background with white writing, sometimes bordered by black or with a shadow. These logos are iconic because of the striking nature of way they are presented. When sat on top of a paper, they set the tone for a colourful, glamourised newspaper. It could the argued that the red backgrounds connote a passion that the tabloids report with, and the white is almost the ironic (given the scandals) face of innocence glaring at you. The red of the backgrounds could also be seen to be linked with the party colours for Labour, strongly supported by The Sun, The News of the World and The Mirror.
The graphology itself of the logos is often similar, where the text is centralised and written in bold font, very clear to see. This could fit in with the target audience and stereotypes of the newspapers as a whole, where tabloids are somewhere that people can get 'dumbed down' news, easy to read and quick to scan through.
These values represent the needs and stereotypes from a low social grade in terms of target audience; perhaps the C-E working class grade, because of its dumbed down sensationalist nature.
When the word 'Daily' or 'The' comes before the name of the paper, it is written above the main name within the height of the capitalised first letter. This correlates with other Sunday tabloids such as the Sunday Mirror, however The People is an exception to this, where 'The' is written vertically up the 'P' but still follows the convention of the moved 'The'.
Bearing in mind my newspaper will certainly not be a red top, I should not use these mastheads as a style model for my own paper as I do not wish to find myself associated with the values and beliefs of the tabloid press.
The Daily Mail, despite not using red mastheads like the aforementioned, is also a tabloid newspaper. Originally printed as a broadsheet, its logo is written in the traditional newspaper masthead typeface, which is synonymous with more broadsheet productions such as The Telegraph, and its symbol and layout is almost reminiscent of that of the Times. The Mail uses this to draw in an audience lesser educated in the workings of the printed press, giving passers by the deceitful impression that it might be something like a broadsheet, full of important news as opposed to the usual stories the other tabloids publish. Despite its cunning disguise, The Mail is still just as much a tabloid as say, The Sun; even down to its use of colour throughout its front cover, giving it a magazine-loving audience friendly look. Aside from the colour and font differences, the Mail's masthead does not present the word 'Daily' above 'Mail' in small font.
While I will not be emulating the style of the Daily Mail, its logo could be something, as a regional newspaper, that I could recreate, depending on what I want to call my paper.
Compact
The world of compact newspapers is interesting, with originally broadsheet style newspapers shrinking to make themselves more appealing, but avoiding being classed as a sensationalised tabloid newspaper.
With the switch from broadsheet to compact, several changes can occur and I will posted about this on another blog. Papers will definitely be apprehensive about changing their mastheads in fear of alienating an audience, however this is what the Independent did recently, almost in order to move the paper into the 21st century. Above you can see that the old, more traditional font has been replaced with a big bold red typeface that takes up more room and the whole of the top of the front page. It is almost reminiscent of the typical tabloid design, but reversed. This could have connotations of it being the opposite to your typical tabloid, and the use of red really sets the tone for what is a colourful but similarly serious newspaper. The Times however, has kept its logo with the original crest. This gives a sense of a formal, seriousness to the paper which really runs throughout.
As far as the newspaper style is concerned, I think a compact newspaper is the way forward for me, my choice of masthead style may coincide with this. I am very interested in emulating the Independent's masthead style, as it is up to date and modern, and will appeal to a younger audience better than the plain typefaces as used in The Times' logo. It is also more sophisticated that tabloid mastheads, and would not bear unwanted connotations of a less serious tabloid.
Broadsheets
Broadsheet newspapers are typically more serious in terms of content, and this often wears off on the masthead style with layout and font, as in The Times. There are few broadsheets around in the present day, as papers switch to compact or berliner format to cope with a newer audience, however the lasting broadsheet papers have stuck to their guns in their content, size and mastheads.
The Telegraph's typeface is very traditional in its little flicks on the letters, its plain black colour, and the fact it hasn't really changed over the years. Similarly, its name 'Telegraph' has connotations of somebody receiving information via a telegraph or other old fashioned equipment, but I will discuss this in another blog post. The FT's masthead has a very plain font, and it does not seem likely that any advertising effort is made within the typeface or layout. This will be because you either buy the FT or you do not buy the FT; not many people will be in debate with themselves as to whether or not to purchase it. Potentially, its layout (boring and plain) may be representative of its subject matter to most people, or even the people who are regular readers!These pitch much higher in terms of 'social rank' than the tabloids do, because of their traditionalist nature and largely black and white format within the masthead and throughout the newspaper. I would suggest that broadsheet newspapers pitch at around the A-B areas of social class, as they clealy address more pressing issues in society, while keeping in the more traditional 20th century format that has died out with the expansion of the internet and consice news.
While I will not be creating a broadsheet newspaper, my product will be firmly broadsheet content based, meaning it will hold similar features of the broadsheet newspaper we know and love. Because of this, I will look to simplistic traditional broadsheet mastheads for inspiration and layout when creating my own, as I want to meet the target audience of broadsheet newspapers who feel the need, as I do, to move on from big papers and condense the same content down to a compact newspaper, which leads me on to the Guardian.
Guardian
Like the Independent, the Guardian has previously been printed as a full broadsheet newspaper, however unlike the Independent, which switched to compact, the Guardian moved to the Berliner format (again, I will explain this on another post).
The Guardian's logo is written in two different colours, the first I have explored to do so in this way. The font and colour fit in with the nature of the paper, with it having a blue theme and a blue bar along the top.
Like the Independent, I would be interested creating my own masthead like that of the Guardian's, as it meets the target audience that I would be happy to aim my own product at, given the way it has kept a lot of its readers since it went to compact form, thus having a lot of readers who are broadsheet quality based. The people I will be targeting are in the middle-upper social grade boundries with a split readership between males and females and I will ned to reflect this when looking at story and language choice. In terms of age, I will need to cater for an audience who can recognise by a front page that the quality of news will be good, and at the same time bring in lower social grades, like students and even the older generation.
Proficient research into masthead styles of similar products.
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