Style combination · Pairs well

Black Metal Graphics × Gothic Blackletter

Take one broken-script title from the gothic tradition and set it small under a hand-drawn thorned logo, in white on black, so the old letter reads as menace instead of a page of text.

From the research on Black Metal Graphics

Mix them and make something Black Metal Graphics Gothic Blackletter

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Gothic Blackletter, their arrangement from Black Metal Graphics, the finish from Black Metal Graphics. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Black Metal Graphics Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition

Type from Gothic Blackletter: Blackletter
Tight setting
Colour from Black Metal Graphics: Monochrome
Dark ground
Form from Gothic Blackletter: Angular & zigzag
Rectilinear
Composition from Black Metal Graphics: Central symmetry
Single focal point
Surface from Black Metal Graphics: Grain & noise
Photocopy & distress

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Gothic Blackletter

Halo

UnifrakturMaguntia, standing in for Gutenberg's 42-line Bible textura (Mainz, c. 1454–55)

Text · Black Metal Graphics

The visual language of black metal, fixed by Norway's second wave in the early 1990s, now worldwide, since the 2010s borrowed by mainstream acts (Szpajdel's Rihanna and Metallica logos, 2016). A hand-drawn band logo, barely legible, its letters grown into thorns and branches and balanced on a central axis, sits white on black over one bleak picture: a grainy black-and-white photograph of a corpse-painted musician, a church, a forest or a Romantic painting. Early covers, xeroxed like punk's, rejected death metal's bright painted art; the tone is misanthropic, pagan or occult, never ironic.

Special Elite; Black Metal Graphics used Hand-inked thorned, mirrored logotype and Old English Text and Fraktur capitals

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Black Metal Graphics, with a counter-accent from Gothic Blackletter. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Black Metal Graphics Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition

#0a0a0a ground · 36%
#e6e2d8 ink · 14%
#6f6f6f accent · 18%
#b0302a accent · 14%
#2a2a2a accent · 10%
#b8913a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0a0a0a;
  --ink: #e6e2d8;
  --accent-1: #6f6f6f;
  --accent-2: #b0302a;
  --accent-3: #2a2a2a;
  --accent-4: #b8913a;
  --font-display: "UnifrakturMaguntia", serif;
  --font-text: "Special Elite", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Black Metal Graphics: The Norwegian scene's early-1990s fame rests partly on real crimes: church arsons from 1992 and two murders. Varg Vikernes of Burzum, sentenced in 1994 for the murder of Euronymous and four church arsons, is credited with bringing neo-Nazi views into the scene, and a small National Socialist black metal minority still spreads them through lyrics and imagery; even Darkthrone had to remove a slogan about race from a 1994 back cover after distributors objected. Cite Burzum sleeves only as history, and take mood from the public-domain Kittelsen and Doré pictures instead. Borrow the mirrored logo, the black field and the bleak photograph, but never a burnt or burning church, a photograph of a real death, or far-right symbols: no Black Sun (Sonnenrad), winged or serifed odal rune, wolfsangel, SS runes or Totenkopf, and no slogan about race or nation in blackletter. Inverted crosses and pentagrams signal hostility to Christianity; weigh them before using them for a general audience. Logos are the commissioned, living work of named letterers such as Szpajdel: commission or credit one rather than copying a band's name or mark.

Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition: Blackletter carries political weight in German-speaking countries: the Nazi regime pushed Fraktur as the German script in its first years before banning it in January 1941 as supposed 'Schwabacher Jewish letters', and neo-Nazis still use broken scripts. In the United States, too, certain blackletter faces are associated with hate groups, on tattoos and clothing. Check how a blackletter wordmark will read, especially for anything German, national or political. Cholo placas are territorial inscriptions of Los Angeles Latino street writing with their own codes: do not copy a real neighbourhood's placa or roll call, and commission or credit Chicano letterers (such as Chaz Bojórquez) rather than borrowing their menace as decoration.

The two styles

1990–present · Northern Europe, Global / networked Black Metal Graphics The visual language of black metal, fixed by Norway's second wave in the early 1990s, now worldwide, since the 2010s borrowed by mainstream acts (Szpajdel's Rihanna and Metallica logos, 2016). A hand-drawn band logo, barely legible, its letters grown into thorns and branches and balanced on a central axis, sits white on black over one bleak picture: a grainy black-and-white photograph of a corpse-painted musician, a church, a forest or a Romantic painting. Early covers, xeroxed like punk's, rejected death metal's bright painted art; the tone is misanthropic, pagan or occult, never ironic.

Large black Gothic lettering reading “Frost Wacht” fills an aged cream poster, surrounded by curling black foliage, red berries, and two inward-facing black birds. Red, blue, and ochre starbursts and a zigzag border frame the symmetrical design.

c. 1180–present · Central Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, North America, Global / networked Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition The broken scripts of the Latin West. Textualis, a book hand from the late 12th century (Rotunda its rounder Italian form), went into type with Gutenberg's 42-line Bible (Mainz, c. 1454–55); Schwabacher followed from 1472, and Fraktur was cut for Maximilian I's Prayer Book (1513). Curves break into angles; tight justified pages read as a dark, even weave with red rubrics. Fraktur set German text until the Nazi ban of 1941. Elsewhere it had long become a display letter, and today signals age, gravity or menace on mastheads, beer labels, metal logos and cholo lettering.

More combinations

With Black Metal Graphics

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With Gothic Blackletter

All 15 combinations with Gothic Blackletter

Every style combination