Should Logotype Be Considered Part of the Heading Hierarchy?

Question

I'm in the process of an identity design for an online magazine and I've come up with what I feel is appropriate logotype, and a heading/body copy pair that I also think work well. But when treating the logo as the top-level heading and looking at the overall hierarchy of the page, the logotype and headings don't pair too well. It isn't "ugly" by any means; they just don't compliment each other.

Does this matter? I know the simple solution would be to change one font to match the other, but if I make the headings the same font as the logo, doesn't this make the logo less distinctive? They also don't quite fit in each other's shoes, as they both have different functions: the logo is meant to be simple and versatile, while the headings bold and singular in focus.

So, in short: A.) Should I attempt to reconcile this? B.) If so, how?

Answer 1

If the logo and the heading/body pair are just close enough to cause friction without actually matching, then go the other direction. If both are serif, make the headline/body pair a complementary sans serif, or vice-versa. If both are heavy, make one light. Et cetera.

That should address both problems: your logotype stays distinctive, and your content copy is both readable and lower-key than your logotype.

Answer 2

For starters, a periodical's logo is traditionally called the masthead. You typically want it to stand apart from, yet compliment the other branding elements being used (just as with any product logo).

So, yes, you should fix it. How? Well, there's no specific answer to that. It's a design problem now. Perhaps it's an issue of the masthead's design. Perhaps the design of the typeface. Or perhaps it's an issue of color, or layout, or scale, or flow, or hierarchy, etc. It can be a number of things. As such, the solution is to just keep at it. Keep working on variations until you get it working.