May 13, 2010 - First of all, it is important to know a lot about the band the logo is for. (technical death metal/progressive death metal/old school death metal) What. Experience in working with typography pay careful attention to the fonts. Download @font-face. Character map. Black Metal Logos:Version 1.00. Full font name. Black Metal Logos. Name table version. Version 1.00 June 26, 2006, initial release.

This is a collection of band fonts, which are identical or similar to the fonts used in the logos of popular bands. However, that doesn’t always mean those band logos are designed using those fonts. You can click on the font name to download the font. Visit our fonts in use section to find more.

I have been creating extreme metal logos for over 4 years now for many bands all over the world. Being an extreme metal fan and a logo designer, it was only natural for me to start creating logos for the metal scene. The demand for these logos were more popular than I expected and I managed to get quite a lot of work from it alongside my studies.

Now that I am focusing on different area’s of work I have decided to write a tutorial to explain in detail how I went about creating the most popular of all my logos; the death metal logo. This will be a symmetrical, hand rendered, vector logo. Step 1 First of all, it is important to know a lot about the band the logo is for. What sub genre do they fit in? (technical death metal/progressive death metal/old school death metal) What are the lyrics about? (politics/urban life/religion) What type of audience are they trying to attract?

Once you have collected enough information about the band, you can then start researching the relevant visuals. If you are not so familiar to death metal then its a good idea to find as many logos you can to use for inspiration. To make the logo more unique its a good idea to find inspiration elsewhere including religious/medieval/occult symbols, typography, non-metal logos etc. The logo I am using for this tutorial was for an old school death metal band.

They had influences from hardcore punk and the lyrics were about politics and society. I took inspiration from death metal logos, punk logos, gothic architecture, the Book of Kells, Blackletter fonts and ambigrams. Step 2 You should now start drawing the logo straight onto paper. Start drawing the letters from your influences, if you lack experience in working with typography pay careful attention to the fonts.

They dont need to be perfectly drawn or measured, we will use Illustrator to do all of that. Spend a lot of time on the sketches, creating at least 3 or 4 that you are happy with as these sketches will determine how good the logo is. Some letters are more difficult to make symmetrical than others, use backwards letters if necessary or make 2 thin letters symmetrical to one wider letter.

You might want to just keep the first and last letter symmetrical if you want it very legible. Try to keep the widths of the letters as consistent as possible. It helps to understand the basics of typography.

Some letters a more tricky than others to make symmetrical. It is sometimes a good idea to start with the most complex letter, then draw a flipped version of the to use as a template. You can then try to fit the other letter inside the template as best as possible. Sometimes the first letter will still need to modified to get a balance between the 2. Here are some examples of sketches where I have had to make 2 letters symmetrical with each other. The green area’s are where the template was drawn from the other letter.

Once you have drawn around that it should then be erased. Once you have some sketches you are happy with, scan it in, get the band to pick their favorite. Step 3 Open up a new Illustrator document at any size/mode. Import > Place the sketches in. Go to View > Rulers.

Then drag down rulers wherever things need to be on the same level and wherever you want straight lines. Step 4 Lock the layer with the sketch on and open up a new layer. Make the fill color transparent and the stroke color a bright red.