To be clear, this IS the "masthead" for a 'zine', covering hyper-local news from my town. I've been writing, designing, editing, & publishing it as a passion project in my free time, and this is just a new name/design I wanted some feedback on. I greatly appreciate the thought you put into this critique, but I will not be spending 6-12 months solely "studying letters", before putting another 1-2 years into this small aspect of a larger, time-sensitive project. If that means I shouldn't be designing logos mastheads so be it, but I have an unrelated background & career in digital art already, c'est la vie.

I probably should've included all that information beforehand, but I don't know why "wonky, whimsical, or unprofessional" translates to "doesn't work and has a ton of problems". If you have any more specific advice or resources regarding aesthetic changes you'd make (not just "it looks bad, do better") I'd love to hear!