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Necrodictator
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:33 pm
Posts: 263
Location: Zimbabwe
PostPosted: Fri May 03, 2019 1:51 pm 
 

So I was wondering what was the earliest "unreadable" logos? Personally I think logos by Death, Morbid Angel, Cryptic Slaughter were pretty readable. This is the earliest I could think of (1986 and this is basically the same band):
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at the gaytes
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:07 pm
Posts: 447
Location: Bangladesh
PostPosted: Fri May 03, 2019 2:35 pm 
 

Holocausto, maybe?

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chuggingpus
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2006 3:56 am
Posts: 125
Location: Vatican City
PostPosted: Sat May 04, 2019 12:37 am 
 

Image

For me it was this

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Gravetemplar
Metal freak

Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:08 am
Posts: 4653
Location: Antarctica
PostPosted: Sat May 04, 2019 5:20 am 
 

chuggingpus wrote:
Image

For me it was this

The Mayhem logo dates to 1986 and the samael one is from 1987. They are similar in terms of "legibility".

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deopisi
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:14 pm
Posts: 281
PostPosted: Sun May 05, 2019 9:35 am 
 

Necrodeath and Protector, but again 1986.

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Amerigo
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:30 pm
Posts: 506
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 05, 2019 12:22 pm 
 

Earliest I can find is Samhain's 1985 demo:

Image
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doomicus
Metalhead

Joined: Wed May 14, 2008 5:58 am
Posts: 1261
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun May 05, 2019 9:25 pm 
 

Ghostrider (itl) has a pretty unreadable logo they used in 1984-85. It's the earliest I can think of. Damnation (can) had a pretty hard to read one too, but that was used in 86 I believe.

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deopisi
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:14 pm
Posts: 281
PostPosted: Mon May 06, 2019 5:11 am 
 

Damn I should have mentioned Ghostrider, the first name of Necrodeath

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chuggingpus
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2006 3:56 am
Posts: 125
Location: Vatican City
PostPosted: Mon May 06, 2019 1:30 pm 
 

Gravetemplar wrote:
chuggingpus wrote:
Image

For me it was this

The Mayhem logo dates to 1986 and the samael one is from 1987. They are similar in terms of "legibility".

Image


When I first saw the Samael logo I was like “what the fuck is Srmrel?” There was no internet guiding my knowledge, just me looking at a tape copy of Worship Him at Camelot Music in East Brunswick, NJ’s Brunswick Square Mall....

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ingmar birdman
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:23 am
Posts: 207
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 11:03 am 
 

What are the two logos in the OP? They truly are unreadable.

Edit: Slaughterhammer and Bloodslaughter. Great logos :eek:

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Lord_Jotun
Veteran

Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2003 5:02 pm
Posts: 2747
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 4:46 pm 
 

Indeed, I don't think any of the proposed entries match the unreadability of the OP, especially Slaughterhammer. That one really threw me.
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~Guest 375902
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2016 7:36 am
Posts: 445
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 2:59 pm 
 

at the gaytes wrote:
Holocausto, maybe?

Image

Wow. It now seems like Holocausto's logo was a precursor to this black metal font. +1

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BURlAL
Metalhead

Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 11:32 pm
Posts: 490
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 3:44 pm 
 

I really expected to see more logos/discussion :(

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~Guest 343918
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 12:23 pm
Posts: 404
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 4:57 am 
 

putrevomitory wrote:
Wow. It now seems like Holocausto's logo was a precursor to this black metal font. +1

There's definitely a similarity but I'd really doubt that the creator of that font would be that well-versed in metal history. By the way: every band that uses that font fucking SUCKS.

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hmi
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:24 am
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 11:59 am 
 

Amerigo wrote:
Earliest I can find is Samhain's 1985 demo:

Image


Yeah, looks like "5Amrair" to me. I could look at that logo 1000 times and never figure out it was Samhain.

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Amerigo
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:30 pm
Posts: 506
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 5:16 pm 
 

hmi wrote:

Yeah, looks like "5Amrair" to me. I could look at that logo 1000 times and never figure out it was Samhain.

Yeah, I read it as 5 AMA AIR. I mean I can sorta see 5=S, but in what world would you write an H and an N like that!?
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Oxenkiller
Veteran

Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
Posts: 3613
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 7:53 pm 
 

Samhain (Denmark) = DesExault; just an early version of that band.

I think the general aesthetic of metal logos changed once death and black metal became popular. Back in the 80's, thrash, power and traditional heavy metal were still the biggest deal, and the bands wanted their logos to be bold, distinctive and legible- to convey a sense of power. Think of bands like the Metallica logo, or the similar fonts used for the Testament and Megadeth logos, or the angular stylized lettering of many other bands.

Death metal logos want to convey a sense of gore, rotting, and decay and that's where you started seeing unreadable ones, just like black metal wanted to convey a sense of mystery, or letters looking like branches of a forest or frost icicles.

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at the gaytes
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:07 pm
Posts: 447
Location: Bangladesh
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 9:53 pm 
 

Necrodeath, 1985

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Osmiumthemetal
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue May 24, 2016 10:30 pm
Posts: 205
PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 10:21 pm 
 

If Samhain counts, then I'm offering Bathory for just the amount of people who think it's 'Bathord' or 'Batlord' or whatever.

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deopisi
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:14 pm
Posts: 281
PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2019 5:51 am 
 

Yeah, some people read Batlord, I always read correctly, maybe because I knew it.

As said by Lord_Jotun, the first 2 are still the most unreadable logos.

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DeadKid
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2011 8:51 am
Posts: 538
Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 3:10 am 
 

A couple from '85:

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Spoiler: show
Insanity

The way this is rendered makes it more tricky than planned:

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Cyrka's logo from '82 is amusing but readable I guess:

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Last edited by DeadKid on Fri May 24, 2019 6:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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wednesdaysixx
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Jun 20, 2015 5:09 pm
Posts: 174
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 4:59 am 
 

DeadKid wrote:
A couple from '85:

The way this is rendered makes it more tricky than planned:

Image



I don’t know what that says. Saber something?
(Sorry for not adding anything.)

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DeadKid
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2011 8:51 am
Posts: 538
Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 5:33 am 
 

wednesdaysixx wrote:
I don’t know what that says. Saber something?
(Sorry for not adding anything.)

Saber Tiger. Becomes a lot clearer when you see their basic logo without the outline:

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