Christophe Szpajdel

The Lord of the Logos

Over the past 30+ years, Belgian artist Christophe Szpajdel has drawn more than 10,000 logos. From hip-hop to death metal, working on anything from film projects to cassette tape zines, Szpajdel has shaped the visual language of really fxxking heavy music.

Having worked with Outkast, Wu-Tang Clan, Emperor, and Wolves in the Throne Room, the appeal of this heavy-metal calligraphy wizard just keeps growing. He’s also produced logos for Rihanna’s Anti World Tour, the MTV Video Music Awards, Metallica’s ManUNkind video, and films including Mandy and Lords of Chaos,

The fact he’s now done a logo for Southsea Sound recording studio

BLOWS MY MIND.

Szpajdel is a wildly humble product of the underground. The dude works in a Co-op near Exeter ffs, but his designs have been shown globally, from Japan to the US and all over Europe. In 2027, Southsea Sound and our good pals Truesteel Promotions will be joining forces to bring an exhibition of his work to Portsmouth. Watch this space!

From mantises to metal

Born in Belgium in 1970, Szpajdel was drawing obsessively from an early age. One of his earliest memories is sketching a praying mantis on holiday, arguably a proto-metal logo in insect form and certainly a hint of the dark, detailed aesthetic that would later define his work.

Due to his parents initial misgivings surrounding a career in the art world, he was urged toward more conventional studies, pursuing biology, agronomy, and forestry before enrolling in forestry engineering at Université catholique de Louvain.

In his first year at university, he joined Thierry Prince’s fanzine Septicore as a writer and illustrator, contributing artwork to cassette compilations and experimenting under extremely metal pseudonyms like Necromaniac and Volvox.

Breaking into metal

Szpajdel’s defining moment came in 1989 when he took a punt and, unsolicited, designed what eventually became the logo for Emperor. This just goes to show. Do the thing!

They loved it. The impact and simplicity immediately resonated with the band. That connection led to him becoming the go-to designer for bands like Old Man’s Child, Enthroned, Borknagar, Moonspell, and Desaster.

He sites his influences as being global. South American bands such as Sarcófago, Sepultura, and Atomic Aggressor shaped his sense of sharp curves and aggressive geometry. Classical calligraphy, from Arabic and Ottoman to Japanese Kanji and Cyrillic, informed the balance and symmetry of his lines.

The art of a logo

Szpajdel is also unusually articulate about the design logic behind metal logos. While the genre’s artwork often appears chaotic to some, he argues that many styles follow recognisable visual rules.

Traditional heavy metal logos tend to be bold, simple and immediately readable with the kind of shapes that “strike the eye” at a glance. Grindcore logos often take the opposite approach, with intentionally chaotic, tangled lettering that reflects the abrasive nature of the music. Brutal death metal logos push this even further, becoming dense clusters of ligaments and shapes that they don’t want you to decipher. You can read it? NOT BRUTAL ENOUGH.

Szpajdel says the style he personally favours sits somewhere in the middle of all that.

Despite the digital age, he still works with pencil, ruler, eraser, and fine liners. He sketches impulsively, producing dozens of rapid concepts before finalizing designs in ink. The range of choices he sent me blew my mind in the best way. It was obvious he’d taken as much time with us as anyone else.

Do yourself a favour and go have a little wander around Szpajdel’s website. I’ve not name checked a tenth of the artists he’s got on there.

x El