Style combination · Contrasts

Black Metal Graphics × Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration

Burzum's Filosofem (1996) put Kittelsen's 'Op under Fjeldet toner en Lur' on its cover; mind the caution before borrowing that framing, and keep the folk-tale humour and tenderness the sleeves leave out.

From the research on Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer)

Mix them and make something Black Metal Graphics Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration, their arrangement from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration, 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 Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer)

Type from Black Metal Graphics: Hand-lettering
Experimental & distorted
Colour from Black Metal Graphics: Monochrome
Dark ground
Form from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration: Naturalistic depiction
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration: Illusion of depth
Extreme scale contrast
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 · Black Metal Graphics

Bloom

UnifrakturMaguntia, standing in for Old English Text and Fraktur capitals

Text · Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration

Norwegian and Swedish folk-tale illustration in which trolls, nøkken and huldra live in a real, observed northern landscape of forest, mountain, bog and farm. Werenskiold invented the forest troll type for Asbjørnsen and Moe in 1879, Kittelsen made it grow out of rock, root and water in hatched pen and wash, and Bauer, in muted watercolour plates for Bland tomtar och troll, set small, still princesses among towering firs and lumbering trolls.

EB Garamond; Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration used Fraktur text and caption type in the Copenhagen Eventyrbog for Børn (1883–87), e.g. the caption '„Hutetu!" sagde Troldet. Tegning af E. Werenskiold.' under a full-page drawing in vol. 2 (1884) and Ornamented fantasy display lettering in red on a gilt panel, with nisser (gnomes), a cat and a porridge pot above it, on the publisher's binding of Eventyrbog for Børn vol. 1 (1883), drawn by Gotfred Albert Hartvig and engraved by J. C. S. Danielsen

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Black Metal Graphics, with a counter-accent from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Black Metal Graphics Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer)

#0a0a0a ground · 36%
#e6e2d8 ink · 14%
#6f6f6f accent · 18%
#c4a04e accent · 14%
#2a2a2a accent · 10%
#6b5238 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0a0a0a;
  --ink: #e6e2d8;
  --accent-1: #6f6f6f;
  --accent-2: #c4a04e;
  --accent-3: #2a2a2a;
  --accent-4: #6b5238;
  --font-display: "UnifrakturMaguntia", serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", serif;
}

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.

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer): Bauer took bent knives, shoes, spears, pots and belts from his 1904 sketches of Sámi life and made them part of his trolls' clothes and ornament: do not dress trolls or other monsters in Sámi gáktis, duodji or tools, or cast the Sámi, a living Indigenous people, as fairy-tale creatures of the northern wilderness. Kittelsen's pictures have also been reused by Norwegian black metal, including on Filosofem by Varg Vikernes, a neo-Nazi, so keep this imagery away from ethnic-nationalist and 'pure North' framings.

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.

An enormous, moss-covered troll merges with a rocky, forested mountainside and looks down toward a small girl standing on a ledge. A waterfall rushes through the gorge beside a distant wooden cabin beneath a full moon, with “Skogvokteren” lettered across the upper sky.

1879–1918 · Northern Europe Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer) Norwegian and Swedish folk-tale illustration in which trolls, nøkken and huldra live in a real, observed northern landscape of forest, mountain, bog and farm. Werenskiold invented the forest troll type for Asbjørnsen and Moe in 1879, Kittelsen made it grow out of rock, root and water in hatched pen and wash, and Bauer, in muted watercolour plates for Bland tomtar och troll, set small, still princesses among towering firs and lumbering trolls.