Band Brands

I just finished reading on Blabbermouth a bit about Motörhead's line of alcoholic beverages on the market. And I was struck by just how good the band's logo looks on bottles! The enterprising rockers certainly liked their drinks, so they were qualified enough to embark on this venture in the booze biz. Wine, beer, whiskey, vodka, and a new cider are part of the repertoire. But check out that snazzy label:

Booze labels aside, what are some other great and famous band logos? I can name a number of my own favourites: Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Metallica (and maybe the similar Megadeth logo), Kiss, Yes, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Lamb of God, and even Anvil. These are all successful compositions of lettering, often turned into a graphic symbol in some respect. 

And of course, Motörhead. The band's word logo alone is very tough and "metal" in appearance, with its Germanic font and use of the umlaut over the second "O" (for no good reason... it just looks good). But pair that with the Snaggletooth head (the band's mascot), and you've got one mean lookin' image. I'm not even that big a Motörhead fan, but if someone gave me one of their t-shirts, I'd wear it just for the awesome graphics.

Kiss has perhaps the most famous logo in the history of rock'n'roll. The clean, simple stylized graphic relays the message instantly. The word "kiss" already pops the obvious thoughts into one's head. But add that bold, chunky, almost Nazi-ish "SS" and you've got something a little nastier, and heavier. And controversial, at least back in the 70's. Knights In Satan's Service. Sheesh....

My personal favourite is the repeated smudged typewriter text used by Cheap Trick from their first album onward. The band parlayed that image into distinctive and fun-looking shirts and buttons and other merchandise. My tee....

Van Halen's debut album sported a sleek and colourful VH logo that appeared on most of their album covers in one form or another. That first design incorporated the band's full name into the big VH symbol, but after that, the band dropped the written name and opted for a leaner, more streamlined symbol. Still very cool.

Metallica and Iron Maiden used workmarks that were probably among the most copied in the business... and maybe even outside the music industry. The sharp, jagged parts of Metallica's image implied the vicious and dangerous music, while the chunky remainder of the word gave the feel of power and heaviness. I've seen so many versions (some comical) of Metallica's logo that it's ridiculous.

Iron Maiden, too, emblazoned their recordings with a bold and stylized font that was imitated or altered slightly for the purposes of other artists. For some reason, I keep thinking that an 80's UK metal band Brighton Rock had a similar-looking logo. Am I right? Or maybe I'm thinking of somebody else. Anyway, that Maiden lettering style is all over the place now.

The Misfits, The Strokes, Venom, Run DMC, Nine Inch Nails, Whitesnake (with the snake head), maybe Electric Light Orchestra, and The Who... all have well-designed logos, even if not quite among my faves. 

Rush, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd all used a new name font or graphic on nearly every album they made. Rush especially had a number of eye-catching logos. I particularly liked the big bold word logo on the first Rush album, and the scrawled cursive on the Hemispheres album had a neat look to it. I've also got a thing for the blotchy ink look on the Signals record, and even the slightly medieval font on A Farewell to Kings. And of course, Rush's famous "man in the star" image works beautifully as a standalone or in combination with any of the many Rush word logos. Take a peek at some examples in my pin, button, and patch collection here. 

Same story with Sabbath. Ozzy and the boys did strike gold with their Master of Reality cover art, though. That bold wavy lettering has become the sort of unofficial band logo, and that's just as well, since it is probably the best of the bunch anyway. 

Pink Floyd was exactly the same, with something different on every album, but their loose, sketchy logo from The Wall remains to this day the band's brand.

I don't care for some of the artwork that either accompanies the band name logo or stands on its own... like that dead-eyed smiley face variation I see on Nirvana t-shirts. No, that one doesn't do it for me. And I find the G'n"R yellow life-preserver (as I like to call it) kind of attractive but at the same time a bit too busy, and perhaps not representative enough of the band. It should feel meaner... like get that yellow ring out of there, and maybe lose that too literal an image of the guns and roses. Not very inspired. 

Led Zeppelin used a different word logo on every album they released. Early on, there was the balloon-y word logo, but then on their fourth album (untitled, but nicknamed either IV or Zoso), inspiration struck the art director. The Zeppelin logo here became the best known and most representative of the band. The lettering evoked the feel of the Tolkien fantasy script we saw in his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books, upon which some of IV's songs were loosely based. The album's and its logo's four accompanying symbols representing each member of the band were and still are hugely popular. Oh, and I can't forget the winged man of the Swan Song album label. All of these images are closely linked to each other and to the band... and their mystique. All beautifully designed. 

The Aerosmith word design alone is groovy and very 70's, but it looks even better with the flight wings attached, like a proper emblem . That's a nicely constructed graphic, though in some incarnations, the name itself is hard to read. Still....

The Queen logo, while very simple, elegant, and fairly effective, is rather plain compared to most band logos. Their elaborate "royal" crest depicting a bird and lions surrounding a crown looks pretty enough and means something when linked to the word logo, but it seems a bit crowded or overly complex with so much going on there. 

There are different sorts of logos: word logos, where quite simply, it is the band name and nothing more; image logos, which consist of a graphic, a drawing of some sort, like the popular Rolling Stones' "lips" picture; and then there is the combination of word and picture art, which can create a potentially busy logo, but they can work very nicely, too. For example, The Misfits' combo logo consisting of their name and their Crimson Ghost face look terrific together; the Ghost face alone looks pretty cool, too. 

I've also always liked the Public Enemy word and graphic pairing... the militant feel of the lettering plus the sniper rifle cross-hairs really get the message across... "in full effect."

The spidery lettering used (over-used, really) by nearly every extreme metal band is unreadable in most cases, and to that I say, "What's the point then?" Too bad they weren't more imaginative in that department. 

The Doors, Def Leppard, Nirvana, The Beatles, Scorpions, Anthrax, Slayer, and Deadmau5.... all of their logos are very distinctive and easily recognizable, but are not necessarily great designs in their own right. They're fine, but nothing amazing. The simplicity of some of them, like The Beatles or Deadmau5, (without the mouse head image) works in their favour... a memorable stamp, at the very least. 

Mind you, the rather plain Deadmau5 word logo comes alive with the additional of one of the many mouse head symbols that appear on album covers. Again, simplicity is often the best solution.