I guess the “Sabbath Black” could be right for this purpose...
And the name is just right for it :>)

cheerio Queneau

As far as I know there aren’t any real Black Metal fonts avaiable. Black Metal logo’s usually are hand-drawn with a high level of symmetry in them. Search for album covers of bands like Mayhem, Marduk, Burzum, Urgehal. Frakturs are often used to complement the typography.

Hope this is of any help.

Artur

So symmetry is a keyword here? I really should know all this comming from the death metal capital of the world but when it is not your cup of tea it is not your cup of tea;-)
Any other traits that are linked to this typography?

Blaktur could be right up your alley.

Ah yes now I see, Bergen. Pretty infamous I believe in terms of Black Metal. :)

About two years ago some obscure black metal band got a lot of press by hiring a designer to do an album cover without the usual genre cliches.

Anyway, black metal albums tend to feature a big hideous custom logo that’s modified to look symmetrical, dripping with pus, blood, and or spiderwebs. It’s common for them to be all but completely unreadable. All other text should be either in a scary-looking blackletter or a roman with lots of sharp points.

What typeface to use depends a lot on what kind of black metal we are talking about. If it is the traditional, early nineties kind, then Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch could be appropriate. But black metal comes in a lot of other varieties as well(folky, gothic, punky, avant-garde), and each has an accordingly different visual style. Either way, Blaktur is definately not the right typeface, as it is way too cartoonish.

(And by the way, Bergen may be a black metal capital, but a death metal capital it is definately not.)

Hi Arild (Norwegian?).

Again as I said before it’s not my cup of tea so I was probably wrong in my definition of Bergen as a death metal city. So it’s black metal huh? What is the death metal capital and which bands are big in this genre. I’m guessing death metal is darker but what other differences are there?

Thanks again for your help:-)

Just checked your website Arild!

You look like you know a thing or two about this topic. Have you seen this? Some friends of mine are doing t-shirts and I was just invited to do one for their series:-)

http://www.skuls.no

(Yes, I am norwegian)

The big death metal countries are sweden and USA. Traditional death metal has a visual style with blood, gore and colorful illustrations (Cannibal Corpse is a good example), whereas traditional black metal is more dominated by fog, nature, darkness and black and white photography. Black metal design should not look gory.

Death Metal tends to be fast, dumb, and focused on Satanism and lyrical depictions of extreme violence, usually in relation to zombies, Satanism, and anti-Christian genocide. Some of it is quite tongue in cheek, but there are also some nutters who talk it all seriously. Florida was the capital of death metal in the 1990s, these days death metal is very much on the wane and doesn’t have much of a locale. It’s sort of hard to keep an audience when one lionizes Albert Fish.

Black metal tends to focus on Norse mythology, with some Satanism and violence chucked in for tongue-in-cheek fun. The music tends to be more melodic and experimental than death metal, and every once in a while a band even tricks a big label into footing the bill for a symphonic partnership album. Pretty much nobody takes this stuff seriously, but they won’t admit it. Like Robert Plant and Bruce Dickinson, black metal lyricists tend to be book nerds, so history and literature pop up a lot; Cradle of Filth self-produced what amounts to a rock opera about Eresebete Bathory. Northern Europe still produces most of these bands, and that’s where they do most of their touring.

The bands in these genres that have made it really big tend to overlap the genres.

the more illegible the better, black metal logos are truly the anti-logos. But that doesnt mean they arent cool, the best imo is the Darkthrone logo, reminds me of a large forest during the autumn darkness of scandinavia.

I did these for www.skuls.no. Great fun. There is no such thing as a black metal typeface. The best way to do it is with a pen. Most black metal logos have a homemade feel to it, mostly because they are. To make it look authentic be sure to draw it almost symmetrical, but not quite.

some lovely stuff there magnus... i hate the music, but love the typography :-)

Thanks a lot guys. To clear one thing up I was always intending to do this by hand however it is important when working within a genre you are not accustomed too to identify certain traits hence my asking for examples of the typography.

It appears that this is the essence “To make it look authentic be sure to draw it almost symmetrical, but not quite”.

Of Magnus’s t-shirts I especially love Gravid, it sits nicely over my perfectly rounded beer gut;-)

Ps: How is Melkeveien these days Magnus?
Pps: To anyone wondering who Magnus is look at http://www.melkeveien.no/ (probably Norway’s best typographic designer)

If the end result is going to involve near-illegible blackletters, with “a high degree of symmetry”, it might be worth considering trying to make an ambigram? (depending on the text this may or may not be feasible...)

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Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster’s stopped working.

Thanks Brett. I’m not too keen on the music either :-) The www.skuls.no project (’skuls’ means ’even’ in norwegian) is a collection of t-shirts with logos of fake norwegian black metal bands. It’s just for fun and of course to see if any non-norwegian speaking people will think it is for real and buy and wear the t-shirts. The band names are the most dull and boring words you can think of like, Office, Bread, Hairdryer, Pillow case etc.

Endre: Melkeveien is doing just fine thank you! I hear the sun is shining in Bergen today! You should buy the Gravid shirt. I’m sure it will look good on you. (for all of you that don’t speak norwegian ’Gravid’ means ’Pregnant’)

dtw: If one can manage to make a black metal logo into an ambiagram that would be perfect! What could be more evil than ambiagrams.

Hehe I’m working on finding a word for the ambiagram;-)

Magnus: I’ll be wearing the t-shirt soon. (Hey Magnus; you weren’t supposed to tell;-)
(The weather is nice and I’m stuck at home with a serious deadline:-(

Look at “wood” type faces, old block-letter printing faces you see on wanted posters and circus banners - lots o’ these floating around out there. Also check out “Halloween” fonts, lotsa sites pop up this time of year include free fonts (check the legal).

Courtesy of my son’s vast and unrivaled knowledge of things dark and Norwegian:

I kind of like Opeth

one of my favorite logos (and bands) for the genre:

The Skuls project is quite funny, but not all the shirts look black metal to me. For instance the use of umlauts in a logo, like the Haarföner logo, signals that this is thrash metal band. But the ones Magnus made, especially the Putevar and Spasertur logos, are brilliant.

Like Justin, I do quite like the music of Xasthur, but I am not too keen on their logo (too messy for my taste). One of my favorite logos is the Borknagar logo:

Other favorites are the aforementioned Darkthrone and Emperor logos.

You are right Arild. Many of the logos have little to do with Black Metal. “Spasertur” and “Putevar” should be availabe soon.

Thanks a lot guys! Keep em coming.
I agree they don’t all look black metal but that doesn’t matter as long as someone (from outside of Norway) buys them;-)

No black metal either, but a very cute and self-deprecating persiflage of a heavy metal classic for ‘softies’ Ms. John Soda/Morr by Jan Kruse.
Came to my mind when reading about ‘Pillow case’ etc … Great stuff, Magnus! :°D

Where can we buy the Skuls shirts, by the way?

You can buy them here: www.skuls.no
It does not work very well in Safari. Use Firefox if you are using a Mac.

another fave:

You can see a lot of duc de berry in the swedish black metal band Marduk.

Tasty Thread! Thanks.

Bastard may do the job

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/virusfonts/bastard/even-fatter/

Endre, it depends on which sub-genre that black metal band plays. If you state the sub-genre they play, maybe I can help you and give you some examples on the fonts that are used.

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http://vysionous.deviantart.com

Endre,

I am sure your deadline has come and gone and you’re up to your 3rd pressing of your awesome shirts (which I am very curious to see!)...but I just had to chime in on some example of “metal” band logos.

Anyway, I am both a Typo-nerd as well as a metalhead, and it has come to my attention that since metal has become more mainstream, the logos of such bands have become well crafted and readable (well, not in all cases, but some are just so awesome to look at!)

Here is an abridged list of bands with (in my opinion) very well crafted logos. Since I know you probably won’t spend the time looking at each and every one, I have marked the ones I found particularly striking with a dash (must see!).

-Aborted
-The Absence
-All Shall Perish
-Arsis
Anata
-Becoming the Archetype *2 different logos for each album, both very nice*
-The Black Dahlia Murder
Cryptopsy
Darkane
Death
-Decapitated
Dragonforce
Exodus
-The Faceless
Glass Casket
Gojira
Gwar
-Heaven Shall Burn
Jacknife
-Job For a Cowboy
Krisiun
A Life Once Lost
Moria
-Necrophagist
-The Red Chord
Shadows Fall
Unearth
Uphill Battle

I also would recommend http://sinisterfonts.com/

I was bored :D

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Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
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