Typography
Typography within music artists branding
The theme that I have chosen within editorial design is the branding and promotion of artists within the music industry that can be seen through album covers, tour posters etc. As an artist, it is necessary to create a successful brand image which is not only recognisable to the public but is also a reflection of who they are as people and the type of music that they produce. This can be established through the typography used in their logo, album etc. to show their target audience what their genre is/what it’s about before they even listen, reinforcing to the listener the style of music they are going after.
For example, metal groups reflect the harsher sounds in their music within their logo with the use of more aggressive and edgy looking typefaces, slanted letters, and darker colours. This genre also focuses less on recognisable lyrics but more on the tone of the vocals. The typography often emulates this as they focus more on the brand image than the legibility of the typeface.
Good Typography
The Arctic Monkeys first album released in 2005 featured this logo with use of a playful, fun typeface which suits the energetic band’s debut album well. The long descenders on some the letters and the irregular typeface give off a child-like impression, as if it has been been written by a child, reinforcing the idea of a new start with the band during their youth. As well as this, all the characters are lowercase which makes the band seem more playful and less serious. The links between the characters also broke the rules of calligraphy – similarly to how the lyricism in their music was more on the subversive side, showing how a bands logo can reflect their current style at the time. I also like the conceptual design of the descender part of the “m” as it is reminiscent of a monkeys tail which links to a part of their band name
Comparatively, in their second album the typeface displayed a dramatic change. The rounded and light shapes were replaced by angular and heavy ones to reflect a more intense, rock-theme change in sound. The “icy” looking typeface with jagged letters that looks as if to have cracks in them also hints back to the word “Arctic” in the groups name. Compared to their first album, this one featured only capital letters in their logo which creates a much more bold impression to their listeners/audience and could show maturity in their branding as they have developed their style in different ways throughout the years.
Bad Typography
I believe this logo for Lana Del Rey is effective at representing her brand with the ‘swoopy’ calligraphy that reflects her soft-spoken songs and melodic music, however I don’t think the lettering that includes the serif and sans serif font within the words works cohesively together. The contrast between the delicate looking capital ‘L’ and ‘R’ and the blocky letters in the middle of the word makes it look out of place and as if it was done by accident – the calligraphy lettering gives the impression of delicacy and elegance as well as a nostalgic feel as it is not as commonly used in modern times which I believe fits her branding well, however, the blocky type that it’s paired with is much bolder and gives a much more aggressive feel which contrasts highly with the sound of her music and branding. The all red lettering also doesn’t help this as it doesn’t allow the eye to view them as separate letters in different fonts and could confuse the viewers brain. Another aspect which makes me dislike this logo is the smaller point size used for “Del” which when read on paper gives it less impact compared to larger sized “Lana” and “Rey”. Although it makes the overall logo fit together more in a set amount of space I think each parts of her name deserve equal significance, therefore the “Rey” should be enlarged. As well as this I dislike the underlining of the word “Del” and the spacing between that and the word as it differs to the spacing of the line connecting the A’s together on the “Lana” making it look less balanced.
Here I attempted to redesign small elements of the original logo to what I thought looked more effective. I changed the inconsistent font into one which is all the same, as well as resizing the words to look more proportionate to one another and making the underlining/overlining of the words more cohesive.
Bibliography:
Images:
- Gomez, E (2013) I will not give up [Poster] Available online: https://weheartit.com/entry/61275111?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weheartit+%28We+Heart+It%29&utm_content=Google+Reader [Accessed 03/10/22]
- Guenni, P (N/A) Band Logo Quiz Part 1 – Metal Edition 1 [Poster] Available online: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/792352128165693402/ [Accessed 03/10/22]
- Sanchez, R (2018) Arctic Monkeys logo history [Logo] Available online: https://www.reddit.com/r/arcticmonkeys/comments/8zezvk/arctic_monkeys_logo_history/ [Accessed 03/11/22]
- Lemmiwinks (2018) Favourite Worst Nightmare [Logo] Available online: https://www.dafont.com/forum/read/389753/arctic-monkeys-favourite-worst-nightmare-font-name-please [03/10/22]
- (N/A) (2022) Lana Del Rey Logo [Logo] Available online: https://logos-world.net/lana-del-rey-logo/ [Accessed 04/11/22]