Do you think other artists, art directors, designers, photographers, etc.
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in typical metal graphics? In speaking with Christophe, I think he kind of said that the artists themselves are generally not taking these factors– and their commercial implications– into account? On the other hand, you as a graphic artist know about this stuff and record labels who are in the business to make money must know as well. Q: Also, on the more technical function of design– how much conscious thought do you think is given to the tenets of memorability, familiarity, affect, etc. Our sense of design evolved with the music and culture, and it will evolve still, and some day what we consider masculine or aggressive may be seen another way, so I don’t think there is a set psychological way that imagery will always be seen.
![legible death metal font legible death metal font](http://modblackmoon.narod.ru/fonts/MB-Poisoned-Type-prev.jpg)
And it can then be realized and utilized as a strategy for marketing, kind of like how Nickelback used statistics to write songs that were successful (if that’s not just a rumor). So I think the association is probably accurate, but I think it’s more of a way to measure and describe it after the fact. What we associate with aggressive is all around us in nature, and it’s all how you see it, and the connotation we apply to it and the aspects we overlook before we appropriate it. They’re not just constructs of sociological expression. Or long nails coming off of black metal gauntlets ultimately resemble the quills on a cute little male or female porcupine. And the most brutal thorny spiky masculine designs we know today are ultimately reflecting thorns from a rose, which is an otherwise feminine connotation. Also if you look at the first real Judas Priest logo, it is just calligraphy, and back in 1973 that dark bold & grim style must have had a stunning effect to rock fans, while today it would be seen as an understated aesthetic like a goth, doom or prog band, and not as cutting edge or invigorating. Also there is the culture around the visual styles, because the only bands to have a logo style like Black Sabbath these days are retro stoner type bands homaging Sabbath basically, because that type of lettering is not seen as cutting edge today. And I wonder if Van Halen had a different logo back then, how different thrash logos would look today or if we would even have them at all. So we see it today as quasi metal, but I think back in 1980 it was not seen as metal at all, and just a flashy logo. For example if you think about the logos of the early years of metal like Van Halen, you can see that, while it is angular, it is not something that I would bar from a disco band or regular rock band from having.
![legible death metal font legible death metal font](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/53/4a/ee/534aee3d5d78dd9aa4ca00a719ab352e--band-logos-black-metal.jpg)
![legible death metal font legible death metal font](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EW7vVzNpl_E/maxresdefault.jpg)
Meaning that eventually if given enough time, a non metal band would come to have a metal logo or a metal band would have a non metal logo, and we’ve definitely seen the latter. People want to try new ideas, and eventually any idea not being done will be done by someone, even if it defies expectations. Or is that all a bunch of over-intellectualized bullshit? (Attached are examples of the kind of stuff one sees in the academic literature on the effects of logo design.)Ī: I do kind of agree the more I think about it, but I think design, and creativity in any field is a process of elimination. Circular = soft = comfortable = compromise = “interdependent self-construal”… That sort of thing. really work the way the psychologists say? As in: Angular = hard = confrontational = “independent self-construal” (great academic jargon!) vs. legibility, angularity, complexity, balance, etc. Do you think the aesthetic approach required to reach that audience as described in the psycholinguistics literature is accurate? In your experience/opinion do the techniques of structure and logic of design, e.g. Q: The sociological literature on metal scenes talks about masculinity and tribalism and confrontation.