This is only a half-truth. The most successful logos of all time are images without text. It's not about legibility, it's about being instantly recognizable. I've argued this before, but when you see this:

...you know instantly that it's the Eximper-whatever band with the ridiculously long name. Is it simple? It's kind of so complicated that it loops back to being simple again. It's not the best possible logo, but that's kind of impossible with a name that is so absurd, then again that in itself clearly works: we're talking about them.

Let's take a great logo. You don't have to discern every single letter in this to immediately know what this is, and you can recognize it from a stone's throw away on someone's shirt or vest. That's what makes a good logo.


It's a great logo, it's great design.

100% agreed. It's not like you're supposed to be able to easily read each letter within an extreme metal logo. But once you know what the logo is, you will always remember it if it's a good one. It's the exact same in clothing brands and mainstream music.

I'm not a fan of Dave Matthews Band or Coheed & Cambria, but it took all of 2 seconds to learn what their logos are 20 years ago and now I recognize them for life. And guess what? They don't have their names in them. No serious person would tell them to change those in order to increase their sales and marketability.

To be fair, Enslaved's current logo suits their change in musical direction. The old logo worked great for the older, harsher sound, but it would've been ill-fitting for an album such as Vertebrae.

I don't have a ton to add to all the responses, I think we are coming down to sheer differences of opinion, but I want to clarify that "legibility" is not important in my opinion just as it isn't in y'all's. The Nike swoosh is "illegible", but nobody would deny its iconic power as a branding element.

The main issue I think these bands encounter is that their logo creates a barrier between what they want to do and the people who could, or do, enjoy their music. The At the Gates old logo (I like to pick on it because people hail it as a "classic" logo, but I don't like the design of it - as I just showed, it's way too tall and it basically only works as a sigil in the corner of an album cover) was fine for the artsy, vaguely progressive Red in the Sky sound, but it would have been dumb to release a "distorted guitars pop music" album like Slaughter of the Soul with that logo IMO.

I definitely understand what you mean regarding the old At the Gates logo regarding it's shape and how it is placed on tour posters, for instance. I'm all for originality, but you're right that it's kind of a double-edged sword because of the shape and how small it has to be to fit on a bill. Also, yes, the old logo doesn't really match the SotS aesthetics.

In Flames is different but similar. Their first logo, while it fits the whole swedeath style, is very plain. And yes, the second logo was just a "font", but it also kind of fits with the chunkier, heavier sound of mid era In Flames. And while I despise what they've become, their newer logo fits with their current sound...

Being original, but staying in-line with the aesthetic of the scene you're evolving within is a thin line to tread.

Honestly, while I like the early one BEST, they're all cool and do suit their various different sounds/eras.

i do prefer the old one, but i understand why he changed it, with the different musical/lyrical direction after the early stuff.

I've always liked both Death logos. And I mean, it changed over the years, it was not sudden. They were already stripping down the logo to a simpler design prior to TSoP. And yeah, the sharper, more stripped down logo of TSoP fits the sound of the proggier, more technical albums of Death, versus the gorier, meatier, rawer sound of Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, Spiritual Healing era of Death.

Great logo:
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/D ... nce/425420
Cheap logo:
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/D ... _Bomb/3292