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What's in a masthead?

Most blogs today have some form of masthead, and a masthead often does more than just put your name front and center. A masthead will often be the design catalyst that establishes the visual style for the entire site. Your colour palette choices, use of iconography and graphics, and typography are often built-out by the decisions made during the masthead creation process. Everyone has different design workflows and not all designs will start at the masthead, but I would guess for many it is high up on the priority list because things like brand impression, and recall value really matter.

If mastheads are such great vehicles for branding, why do people change them so much? That's a question that came up recently in a discussion I had about masthead design in an IM chat. Complete site redesigns in the blogosphere are rampant. Part of the reason for this is that there are a lot of design aficionados populating the blogosphere, and they get bored with their own designs. I would also argue that the very nature of blog readership (the tools too) places a heavy emphasis on the 'fresh factor'. Blog readers will often visit their favourite sites several times a day, every day. Familiarity and recognition are important factors, and changing design themes too often could have serious adverse effects. But with such heavy frequency of return readership on blogs, readers can get bored of your style and presentation faster than we might see with other mediums. It is not uncommon for readers themselves to notify the blog owner that it's time for a change, or in some cases may actually take matters into their own hands and orchestrate a design rebellion on their own. Whether offline or online, all publications evolve, and as they do logically the masthead will reflect a publication's evolution.

Can you see one here?

Even the untrained eye can see that Gizmodo's (a Gawker property) mastheads are telling a story of refinement. A progression toward cleaner lines, less complicated presentation and more brand focus is clearly evident.

The masthead is just one component of a site's design, but it is an important one. With advertisers getting an increasing proportion of a web page's real estate, the masthead will continue to be one of the last bastions of branding territory we'll have access to, so we have to use it well.

Here's one that didn't make the cut. I'm sure you can guess which blog it was for.

* For any faithful Gizmodo readers, yes I know that one masthead iteration is missing (the dragon).

TAGS: design
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