CASE STUDY
Black Metal Rainbows
"Black Metal Rainbows" is a triumphant book that explores the paradox within black metal, an underground genre typically associated with violence and controversy.
Beyond grim clichés, this radical collection of essays, art, and activism reveals black metal's vibrant, revolutionary paradigm—celebrating joy, community, queerness, and leftist politics. It unveils the genre's sparkling core and prismatic spectrum, rejecting stereotypes and embracing a darkly glittering rainbow.
the brief.
Original logo for Black Metal Rainbows, done by Lord of the Logos, Christophe Szpajdel
Design a book that visually harnesses the chaos and frantic energy of black metal, but also layer in the spice, beauty, power, and sparkle that comes from the collective of writing and art we are spotlighting.
Also, ensure accessibility for anyone and everyone — breaking the insular and sometimes slightly scary black metal stereotypes.
Client
PM Press
Year
2017
Co-editors
Daniel Lukes & Stanimir Panayatov
It's very easy for anything in the black metal music genre to fall into the stereotypical look and feel: stark black and white; fraktur fonts; high contrast, lo-fi photography.
This new project begged the questions:
What else can black metal look like?
What will black metal look like in the future?
What SHOULD black metal look like in the future?
What hand will this book have in ushering that in?
The design exploration began by sourcing abstract analog textures that directly spoke to the murk, grit, and darkness of early black metal—a world of photocopied zines and rudimentary cassette tape layouts from the early '90s
Layered on top were wildly colorful, glitchy textures representing the spectrum of contributors to the book—bright glimmers from the future.
The last element, the most unpredictable, was scribbles—a human touch meant to illuminate aspects of the content and make it feel like someone had thumbed through the volume beforehand, marking meaningful pieces.
Together, these elements started to capture the visual chaos the editors were after. Paired with a perfectly pixelated fraktur font, they formed a visual language—a graphic universe for this book to reside in.
