How to change font style and background color in titleForHeaderInSection method

Swift implementation of @codercat's answer:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {

    view.tintColor = UIColor(red: 0.967, green: 0.985, blue: 0.998, alpha: 1) // this example is a light blue, but of course it also works with UIColor.lightGray

    var header : UITableViewHeaderFooterView = view as UITableViewHeaderFooterView
    header.textLabel.textColor = .red

}

Here's an example that uses your existing code to set the title text, but lets you use UITableViewHeaderFooterView to adjust the appearance:

- (UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    static NSString *header = @"customHeader";

    UITableViewHeaderFooterView *vHeader;

    vHeader = [tableView dequeueReusableHeaderFooterViewWithIdentifier:header];

    if (!vHeader) {
        vHeader = [[UITableViewHeaderFooterView alloc] initWithReuseIdentifier:header];
        vHeader.textLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
    }

    vHeader.textLabel.text = [self tableView:tableView titleForHeaderInSection:section];

    return vHeader;
}

If you want, you can even subclass UITableViewHeaderFooterView just like you'd subclass UITableViewCell to customize the appearance even further.

simple and optimized

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    // Background color
    view.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];//[UIColor colorWithRed:77.0/255.0 green:162.0/255.0 blue:217.0/255.0 alpha:1.0];
    // Text Color
    UITableViewHeaderFooterView *header = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *)view;
    [header.textLabel setTextColor:[UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"tableSection"]]];

}