The document discusses logo and branding conventions in the metal music genre. It describes how the band Demon Hunter uses a distinctive demon skull logo centrally on all their album covers and merchandise to identify their brand. The author's media project replicates this logo and branding approach, featuring the demon skull logo prominently on the album cover and poster to conform to genre expectations and strengthen the Demon Hunter brand recognition. Additional typographic elements were also designed to match the band's "alternative" style.

1. By Michael Scotney

2.  A logo is a small design or a symbol used by
an organisation to identify its
products/services, employee uniform,
vehicles etc.
 Branding is a marketing practice of creating
a name, symbol or design that differentiates
the product/service from its competitors.

3.  The rock and metal genres are among the most
prominent in utilising logos and branding. This is
due to the fact that their fans (audience) are the
most likely to buy a T-Shirt and other clothing and
related merchandise and so creating a strong logo
and brand would help expand these sales.
 Examples include Guns n Roses and ACDC

4. Our logo is based off the logo of the band
that is song is by, Demon Hunter. It depicts a
stylised demon skull with a bullet hole
through its forehead. They created this logo
to show the depiction of good defeating evil
because they are a Christian metal band and
many of their lyrical themes revolve around
this concept and their beliefs.
They use this logo throughout all of their
album covers and Digipaks centrally, and in
all of their merchandise such as their T-
Shirts and other items. So we knew that we
needed to replicate this band convention and
so we created this template using 2D Design
V2 that is used centrally on our album cover
and centrally in large size on the poster. It
simply features the depiction of a demon
skull in two parts with a stylised design as
one side is larger than the other.

5.  A key feature of branding is logo
design and so the previous slide
obviously describes the main part of
our central image used throughout
the digipak and the poster, the
demon skull with a bullet hole
through it. The logo took clear
priority with being large and central
in the most important areas of both
media texts, the digipak and the
poster in being central on the digipak
album cover and large and central on
the poster. The logo is famous, fitting
and iconic and so we had to conform
to the convention. It is also included
on the back cover to strengthen the
brand.

6.  However, we used the branding central images of the
Demon Hunter name also in a gnarly, underground font
like the band uses to conform to the dark ‘alternative’
metal genre conventions and to look cooler rather than
a boring standardised design style. It makes it more
eye-catching so the marketing purpose of the branding
can be a success. We also kept the typography
consistent across the Digipak and poster media products
to strengthen the visual theme that we created to link
the two texts.

7.  Because the Demon Hunter logo is so iconic and crucial
in their branding, we unanimously took the creative
decision to symbiotically feature it in the most
important eye space of the digipak and poster media
texts. So we linked the logo dead central in large size
on the album cover and included it dead central in
large size on the poster. This was clearly linked across
these two media texts.

8.  Our central target
audience are fans of the
band. From the digipak
and poster media
products, they expect the
iconic and popular band
logo to be used centrally
in the design. Therefore
we conformed to the
convention because we
knew that this would
definitely be more
effective for the target
audience.

9.  Our next target audience members are the fans of
the genre, metal. Their expectations are slightly
different, and they expect ‘alternative’ looking or
‘underground’ design with fonts that look unique
and grungy, and so we also conformed to these
conventions with the unique and stylised initials of
the band lettering on the digipak and the band
name on the poster featuring the same eye-
catching and unique font.

10.  So in evaluation, Demon Hunter
use the branding of their logo as
an integral, main part of their
marketing. So we recreated this
technique which will be
effective for the target
audience and added our own
spray paint twist which fits in
with the underground, grungy
genre conventions. We linked
the logo across both the digipak
and the poster, in the most
important spaces, in large size
and central positioning as the
appearance of this imagery is
crucial. This is effective in my
opinion because it meets the
target audiences’ expectations
and clearly strengthens the
iconic brand Demon Hunter have
built.

11.  However, we made the creative decision to not
link the initials and the band name branding on
the media texts. This is effective in my opinion
because they are not central in the branding
and also the name is needed on the poster to
inform new potential customers of who the
band is and not on the back of the digipak
where the name is not needed.