Masthead ideas

After experimenting with masthead ideas i ended up with the following document:

Asking the target audience i found out which looked the most attractive and was easiest to read. The 4th was said to be the best laid out but the 5th the nicest looking. I used this to create a first draft of the masthead made from scratch:

I showed this to the same people to get feedback. The general feel for it was that it was not bold enough and the letters possibly too low resolution to be easy to read.

I took these criticisms into account and created a new one with a higher resolution and a black outline to make it clearer.

This is my final design. The colour palette that I used was that from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which makes the masthead more appropriate for the audience. Though it is subtle it is still noticeable.