Shitty metal logos get props from the shitty design community

We all know what fags designers are, right? Fashion designers, industrial designers (I know they sound tough, but they aren't) and, of course, graphic designers. Graphic designers are the dickless shits responsible for the UPS trucks being that ugly-ass brown and for those uber-gay ipod ads. Yeah, yeah, you're cool. You know how to push a few buttons in some crappy Adobe program and you think you are better than the rest of us. I know a few graphic designers here and there and, believe me, they actually think that what they do is important. I'm not kidding. With the exception of actors, graphic designers are the most narcissistic, arrogant, big headed, proud, conceited, immodest, vain, self-important, self-satisfied, self-righteous and self-involved people in the planet. Don't believe me? Go to a bookstore and check out the graphic design section. There are hundreds and hundreds of books by designers for designers about design. They think that what they do is so vital that the world needs book after book about design. In reality, they just wanna make themselves feel better about sitting in front of an over priced ibook making pretty pictures all day.

One of these books caught my eye recently and it illustrates just how out-of-touch these black-turtleneck-wearing fags really are. The book is called "BAND ID- The Ultimate Book of Band Logos". Wow! We're lucky it's the ultimate one. See? Even in their book titles they exaggerate their importance. Anyway, this collection was put together by this dude named Bodhi Oser. He's basically a hippie looser from Venice Beach, who wouldn't last a second in a serious Biohazard pit. So, what does he know about metal? Nothing, but the combination of his ignorance and his self-righteousness make for a funny-ass book.

I know the pics are blurry and crappy, but I "borrowed" the book from this dude in my office while he was in the crapper, so I was short on time, y'know?




I can see why designers would like this logo. It's sorta symmetrical and shit, but that "L" looks like an "S" with down syndrome. I still can't get over the thought of some trendy faggy designers sitting around a conference room table discussing whether or not the Death Angel logo would "make the cut". It's just fucking preposterous.




I always loved the Anthrax logo. I'm not sure why. Maybe 'cuz it's not symmetrical, like the other thrash metal logos of the time. The Nuclear Assault logo is chuck-full-o-horribleness. I find the "E" and the double "SS" offensive on grounds of really bad typographical balance.


Emperor and their shitty logo, with skinny Ethiopian letters, can suck my balls. So can Mortiis. I'm sure he did the logo himself. God, it's as terrible as his "music". On a more positive note, Death's logo is bad-ass. Sure, the "T" is three times thicker than the rest of the letters, but it's a cross! Upside-down? Not really. It's a mystery, just like why the band started to suck shit after Leprosy. I love the Napalm Death logo, simply because it's obvious the original was rendered by a 16 year old using a ball-point pen.



Obituary and Venom are two of the radest logos in the book and they share a page! Wait, maybe the author knew something about metal after all... Nah, beginner's luck.



BARF! This whole page is shit. The Moonspell logo would be cool if the letters were fatter and more manly, but I guess that's something black metal knows nothing about, huh? My Dying Bride's logo looks like Micheal J. Fox drew it.



Cradle of Filth and Hatebreed suck, fuck'em. I probably stand alone here, but I love Pungent Stench, therefore my judgement on their logo is biased. I have the Been Caught Buttering t-shirt and I wear it all the time to this very day.



Hahaha! Overkill shares the page with a whole bunch of other shitty bands!



Morbid Angel's logo has probably won multiple awards in the design community as the shittiest logo in history. And that probably included the "logo" from "Tacos Pedrito", a tiny taqueria by my house. God, look at that "A"! It's as painful as their music! The "G" holding the pitchfork has to be the worst use of a letter form since cuneiform was invented in 3000BC.
Dark Throne's looks like it was done in ink and they left it outside when it was raining. In a Norwegian forest, of course.




I like Entombed's logo and I think Carcass' looks like a used tampon. The Chasm, Usurper and Hate Eternal's logos were designed to give Morbid Angel's a run for it's money. Congrats guys, you almost made it.



I don't know what to say about this page, other than: WTF!? Municipal Waste? I'm pretty sure Seth Putnam never thought that his retarded doodles of assholes and vaginas would end up in a book about logos. Hmmm... Nox needs to... I don't know what they need to do, but whatever it is it should be funny and make them disappear. Forever.



The only good thing about the Scorpions logo is that I could re-create it on my shitty PC as a kid by just using a pre-loaded font. Other than that this page is pretty rad. Maiden, Priest, Annihilator and Testament. Solid bands, solid logos.


If I had real testicles when I was 15, all 3 of these logos would be tattooed on my body. Thank God I didn't grow balls until I was 20! Well, I don't think the Obituary tattoo is much better.



Another 3 logos I'd tattoo on my body. The Exodus one is a little weak, 'cuz the "E" and the "S" are all slouched, but it's still pretty metal. Kreator and Destruction logos adorned every other page in my notebooks in school for years.



I'm not sure what to make of the little bat flying over the Kind Diamond logo, but other than that KD's is a classic logo and, like their music, way better than Merciful Fate's. I know I'm gonna get the typical "you don't know what you're talking about, MF rule." blabber. Save it, MF sucks.



You know what doesn't suck? Slayer logos. It's tough to judge the logo of such an awesome metal band without allowing their awesomeness get in the way of your judgement, but the sword pentagram is SO bad-ass that just drawing it makes you more metal. The newer one they used on "Seasons" sucks. It's basically a font. It's called Ironwood. It fucking sucks.


Hmmm... I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you all that I'm a graphic designer

I have disliked Annihilator for 18 years

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 1990, the place was the "heavy metal" section of the cassettes at Camelot Music in the Everett Mall. I was trying to decide which tape to spend my hard-earned money on. In one had I had Sodom's "Agent Orange," and in the other I had Annihilator's "Alice In Hell." I had never heard either one, but both bands had cool logos that I felt like they could be good. It was a toss up until I looked at the picture of Annihilator and Jeff Waters was wearing Oakley wraparound sunglasses and I was like "Wow, that guy is a huge faggot just like Kerry King and his stupid sunglasses, fuck these guys," and bought the Sodom tape. And thank Christ, imagine how pissed I would have been if I had bought "Alice In Hell" instead.

Much like Overkill and Meliah Rage, Annihilator are a great example of when quality control becomes an issue in the heavy metal factory. Someone should have hired a Six Sigma consultant or something, because these bands should never have happened in the first place.

It's not just their music that makes them so terrible. Their cover art is also so dumb that I want to fall on a sword just to make it go away. After 20 years, they're still using that terrible airbrush and oil style that bands like Uncle Slam ran into the ground. There's always some kind of "mindblowing" concept and I can just imagine Jeff Waters going over to the artist's house and passionately sketching his idea out on the back of an issue of Kerrang from 1992: "OK, so it's like this girl... and she's in this spooky mansion... and surrounded by dolls. But they're evil dolls! I know this girl that works at the Applebee's down the street that would probably model for it."

If all this wasn't enough to prove that Annihilator are an awful band, you should know that Dave Mustaine loves them. Here is a testimonial from him on the latest Annihilator album. Please note that his poor son is named "Justis."

"I listen to Jeff's new Annihilator cd 'Metal' in my car while zipping my son, Justis, off to high-school each morning. He puts it in the cd player and shows me all his favorite spots; it makes me proud that he digs good metal!"
Dave Mustaine

However, I do have to give credit where it's due. Jeff Waters recently cut his hair, and it turns out that he looks a lot like Matthew Fox from Lost and Party of Five.