Research - Font and Band Logos

Research in to fonts and band logos. 

As Death of Qwerty are a "grunge nouveau" band I felt it was important to look at old grunge bands graphic design as this aspect of their music will obviously be important to get across in their logo design.  However I also looked at bands outside the genre such as the house artist Kavinsky and psychedelic 60's icons Jefferson Airplane.  I also looked at the logos of modern day grunge bands, such as the new logo of Soundgarden and the logo of grunge revival band Black Moth.  Many logos seem to have a hand drawn element to them, in keeping with the raw energy of the genre. There's also a large element of distorted psychedelic typography.  This 'psychedelic element' is also something I noticed through previous research of the present graphic design of grunge-veterans Mudhoney.  It is almost as if this style has been the natural visual progression for many present day grunge bands.

When looking in to fonts that could influence my logo design I tried to stay clear of tacky, messy "overly grungy" fonts that would clearly be unreadable.  The fonts displayed above are free for personal and commercial use and include:

1.  Imagine Font
2. Impact Label
3. Basket of Hammers
4. Bazar
5. Adler
6. Andes
7. AW Conqueror Carved Four
8. AW Conqueror Inline
9. Chi-Town
10. Green Piloww
11. Trash
12. Trash Barusa
13. Horror
14. Lastman
15. Ligurino
16. Lithos Pro
17. Lullaby
18. Neou
19. Oliver
20. Sketch Rockwell
21. Pointy Demo
22. Remnant
23. Ultimate Midnight
24. White Rabbit

Spindly fonts such as Horror (13) and Neou (18) are unlikely to be used as they have proved hard to read as smaller point sizes.  Sans Serif typefaces such as Ligurino (15) and Lithos Pro (16) seem a bit too plain and boring to be used however I feel they have potential to be very interesting given sufficient editing and customisation.   

Though this article addresses more corporate logo design, I'll be keeping the following advice taken from it in mind:

• Ensure the logo also works horizontally and includes both horizontal and vertical options.
• Ensure the logo works in black and white.
• Ensure it works on both black and white backgrounds and without a box around it.
• You should be able to sketch all non-typographical elements in five seconds or less.
• Avoid free fonts. [oops]
• Ensure you use less than two fonts.
• Do not use more than two colours.
• Do not include more than one shape in addition to text.
• Use abstract shapes.
• Never use clip art.
• Avoid complex patterns or photographs.
• Avoid using gradients.
• Do not use default kerning.

(Mark, J.  2013)

To conclude, the Death of Qwerty logo design will likely include hand-drawn and/or distorted psychedelia influences however these elements will not be pushed too far to ensure the design is still clearly readable and fairly modern.


References:

Mark, J.  2013.  4 essential rules for effective logo design.  [online] webdesignerdepot.com.  Available from: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/03/4-essential-rules-of-effective-logo-design/  [Accessed 7th March 2014].