If you haven’t been reading Paul Pope’s blog, you’re really missing out. In his latest entry, Pope discusses the inspiration for, and evolution of, the logo for Batman: Year 100:
For the BATMAN YEAR 100 trade dressing, given that the tone of the story has more than a little bit of Orwell’s 1984, I wanted to find something which felt like a logo you’d see on an old heavy metal album–like an Iron Maiden or Motorhead record cover from the ’80s. Those album cover designs always lean toward upsetting, oppressive imagery (especially if the guys in the band aren’t particularly good looking)– crude symbols of militarism and decay, images of Kaiser’s ridiculous, pointy-tip helmet, rows of yellowed skulls under frayed national flags, crumbling Egyptian pyramids, jagged mountain peaks under lightning-scarred skies, gleaming motorcycle chromes belching great bursts of red flames and smoke–etc. etc.
If these designs had a scent, they’d smell like brimstone and sulphur and gunpowder and rotting flesh. This stuff is like catnip to upset, oppressed adolescent boys.
More typography talk at the link, of course.
