Hasta La Ideas

Norwegian band, One Tail, One Head

In what looks set to be an interesting take on the history of the scene, a new book from Black Dog explores the powerful visual side to one of music’s most notorious and maligned genres: black metal…

Like any musical genre, alongside the music there is also the visual aspect; the recognisable tropes that more often than not indicate that the album you have in your hands, or the website you’re clicking through, belongs to a band who make a particular kind of noise. Of course, this is not always the case (with some artists attempting to eschew this completely), but genres and subgenres thrive on their visual codes that link fans and bands together.

Band identity for Belegurth by Christophe Szpajdel

Metal’s bleaker cousin ‘black’ metal, perhaps has one of the strongest identities of all, and it’s one which interestingly crosses over several visual disciplines. From the elaborately calligraphic type treatments of the band’s names, to the ‘corpse paint’ make up, and theatrical elements which make up a fearsome stage presence, black metal has a very distinct visual language.

On right: Negru, drummer in Romanian band, Negura Bunget. Courtesy Negru

An interesting new book from Black Dog (an apt publisher if ever there was one) tries to get beyond the stereotypes of insularity and nihilism, and examine the movement from a more academic perspective. For that reason Beyond the Darkness is even billed as an “in-depth reader” on the scene.

And that’s no bad thing, as there is much intelligence to be found among the movement’s protagonists and some surprising alliances with, the publishers inform us, “radical environmentalism, fine art, sexuality, transcendentalism and theatrics, amongst other topics.” It looks like Black Dog has commissioned some serious writing here as well, with essays from journalist Louis Pattison; The Wire writer, Nick Richardson; and Pitchfork editor, Brandon Stosuy.

Opening spread to section on transcendental black metal

Above: AiwarikiaR and Garm from the band, ULVER, 1993. Courtesy the artists.

We’re yet to see an actual copy for a proper look through the tome, but Black Dog has just sent us these images from it to share on the CR blog. From the look of the spreads it also appears to have been very well put together, too.

Bands featured in the book include Bathory, Burzum, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Blut Aus Nord, Xasthur, Wolves In The Throne Room, Darkthrone, Immortal, Hellhammer, Liturgy, Weakling, Ulver, Immortal, Enslaved, 1349, Krallice, and the associated artists of the French Les Légions Noires movement.

CR blog readers can benefit from an offer of 40% off the cover price of £19.95. To order, simply email Jessica Atkins at jess@blackdogonline.com with your delivery address and quote ‘CR OFFER’ in the subject line.

Black Metal: Beyond the Darkness is available now from Black Dog; £19.95.

On right: Gorgoroth, Black Mass, Kraków, 2004. Copyright Peter Beste. Courtesy the artist.

Bleak and unsettling, David Lynch’s film Eraserhead certainly has a soundtrack to match. New York’s Sacred Bones is behind the design and release of a new deluxe edition of the recording, which remains something of an industrial classic…

The reissued LP edition is designed by the label’s own Sacred Bones Design and includes a 16-page booklet filled with imagery from the film, three 11″ x 11″ prints, and a limited edition Peter Ivers 7″ recording of the soundtrack’s most recognisable (and covered) track, In Heaven, presented with a newly unearthed Ivers recording taken from the original soundtrack audio tapes.

Featuring throughout the recording is Alan Splet’s sound design which matched the claustrophobic, nightmarish quality of Lynch’s late 70s vision, blending noise with piano and organ, and a little bit more noise.

Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording is available from sacredbonesrecords.com and also Boomkat in the UK (though it currently appears to be out of stock).

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
The August Olympic Special issue of Creative Review contains a series of features that explore the past and present of the Games to mark the opening of London 2012: Adrian Shaughnessy reappraises Wolff Olins’ 2012 logo, Patrick Burgoyne talks to LOCOG’s Greg Nugent about how Wolff Olins’ original brand identity has been transformed into one consistent look for 2012, Eliza Williams investigates the role of sponsorship by global brands of the Games, Mark Sinclair asks Ian McLaren what it was like working with Otl Aicher as a member of his 1972 Munich Olympics design studio, Swiss designer Markus Osterwalder shows off some of his prize Olympic items from his vast archive, and much more. Plus, Rick Poynor’s assessment of this year’s Recontres d’Arles photography festival, and Michael Evamy on the genius of Yusaku Kamekura’s emblem for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Artist Gustavo Sousa has reinterpreted the five Olympic rings as a series of infographics, comparing statistics across the five continents. The statistics range from comparisons of how many McDonald’s outlets there are per continent, to more serious statistsics about gun ownership and hazardous waste.

Thanks to the excellent French site Fubiz, we came across this series of infographics that use the five Olympic rings to represent statistics for the five different continents.

Although the Olympic rings were originally created to represent the five continents that take part in the Games, the colours don’t correspond to particular regions. One issue we would raise with Sousa’s infographics is their lack of a key to explain which continent is represented by each ring. There’s potentially a clue in the title of Sousa’s Tumblr –  oceaniaeuropeamericasafricaasia – however it’s not entirely clear if the title corresponds to the infographics.

Sousa has also made a video version, which sees the rings morph into each infographic in a rather pleasing way.

oceaniaeuropeamericasafricaasia from gustavo sousa on Vimeo.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
The August Olympic Special issue of Creative Review contains a series of features that explore the past and present of the Games to mark the opening of London 2012: Adrian Shaughnessy reappraises Wolff Olins’ 2012 logo, Patrick Burgoyne talks to LOCOG’s Greg Nugent about how Wolff Olins’ original brand identity has been transformed into one consistent look for 2012, Eliza Williams investigates the role of sponsorship by global brands of the Games, Mark Sinclair asks Ian McLaren what it was like working with Otl Aicher as amember of his 1972 Munich Olympics design studio, Swiss designer Markus Osterwalder shows off some of his prize Olympic items from his vast archive, and more.

Plus, Rick Poynor’s assessment of this year’s Recontres d’Arles photography festival and Michael Evamy on the genius of Yusaku Kamekura’s emblem for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

In 2004 Jon Barnbrook’s foundry VirusFonts reinterpreted the Olympic pictogram in a series of designs that “acknowledged the complex contradictions of the modern Olympics.” Launching today, a new range of Olympukes symbols has been created to reflect on London 2012…

“The occasion of the London 2012 games gives us an opportunity to revisit this concept,” say the studio on their blog, “not only because VirusFonts is based in London but also much has changed globally in the last eight years.”

‘A’ from the Olympukes set: ‘Overzealous policing of Olympic name’

Acknowledging the commercialism inherent to the modern Olympics, Virus explain that the new Olympukes range also makes reference to the economic climate in which the Games are being staged. “Ironically, the last time London hosted the Olympics, they were nicknamed the Austerity Games,” the studio writes. “Sixty-four years later, we find ourselves back in an era of austere cuts which serves to highlight the absurd expense of the 2012 games.”

‘H’ from the Olympukes set: ‘Hypocritical sponsorship deals’

The hot potato of Games ‘security’ is also dealt with graphically. “What was a little more unexpected is the excessive security measures due to be employed by a supposedly liberal democracy,” say Virus. “But then again, in a country with an estimated 1.8 million CCTV cameras, maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised.”

Taken together the 2012 Olympukes look at the “complaints, controversies and accusations levelled at the London Games and associated events”, rendering some of the more familiar Games-related media stories in pictogrammatic form. One recurring theme addressed in the project is the militarisation of Olympic security, evoked in a general sense in the yellow graphic (above) and, more specifically, in the stationing of surface-to-air missles on various buildings in east London, as shown in blue (also above). The full set of 52 pictograms can be seen here.

Olympukes 2012 is available in dark and light weights in the multi-platform OpenType format. To download Olympukes 2012 visit the VirusFonts website and create an account (users will then be able to download the font for free). The 2004 series is also available here.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
The August Olympic Special issue of Creative Review contains a series of features that explore the past and present of the Games to mark the opening of London 2012: Adrian Shaughnessy reappraises Wolff Olins’ 2012 logo, Patrick Burgoyne talks to LOCOG’s Greg Nugent about how Wolff Olins’ original brand identity has been transformed into one consistent look for 2012, Eliza Williams investigates the role of sponsorship by global brands of the Games, Mark Sinclair asks Ian McLaren what it was like working with Otl Aicher as amember of his 1972 Munich Olympics design studio, Swiss designer Markus Osterwalder shows off some of his prize Olympic items from his vast archive, and more.

Plus, Rick Poyner’s assessment of this year’s Recontres d’Arles photography festival and Michael Evamy on the genius of Yusaku Kamekura’s emblem for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Creative Review’s August issue is an Olympic-themed special issue with 40 pages of features that look to explore the past and present of the Games to mark the opening of London 2012…

Photographer John Ross and creative studio Rosie Lee talk us through their art project, Monument, which sees sportsmen and women make an impression in a vast 15 foot tray of flour which is then lit and shot to create images that look like sculptural reliefs.

We showcase one of Jason Hawkes‘ spectacular aerial photographs of the Olympic site.

Olympic-obsessed graphic designer Markus Osterwalder (who owns over 12,000 Olympic-related items) talks us through the games’ visual design history and his disappointment with the look of London 2012.

Mark Sinclair interviews Ian McLaren, one of the joint deputy art directors of Otl Aicher’s 30-plus 1972 Munich Olympics design team.

Gavin Lucas asks if the design of Olympic bid logos is taken seriously enough.

Millions of pounds are spent by global brands on sponsoring the Games. Eliza Williams wonders what they really get out of it.

Patrick Burgoyne talks to LOCOG’s Greg Nugent about how Wolff Olins’ original brand identity has been transformed into one consistent look for 2012.

And Adrian Shaughnessy reveals how he has had to review his initial scepticism for the London 2012 logo after Wolff Olins explain publicly for the first time the thinking behind it.

Plus, in Crit, Rick Poynor appraises this year’s Recontres d’Arles photography festival…

…and Michael Evamy discusses the genius of Yusaku Kamekura’s Tokyo 1964 emblem.

Also, in Monograph this month we show photographs taken as part of Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit‘s Olympic City photography project in which they explore the successes and failures of various Olympic legacies in various former host cities around the world.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.