Wisdom And Fools Logo

I was asked by the metal band Wisdom And Fools to revamp their logo. Their original logo was a very standard no-frills sans serif typeface that didn’t really communicate much about their type of music or general vibe, and their label thought they could use something a little more illustrative.

The band said that they didn’t want a cliche over-the-top illegible metal band logo. They cited the band Mastodon as graphic inspiration, specifically referencing the geometric, nordic, and art deco-inspired typography that Mastodon uses in their artwork. They also wanted subtle distressing and they wanted to keep the ampersand instead of spelling out the ‘and’ in the name.

I initially showed the band a selection of 8 font options, several of them from the beautiful Hydro74 font library I purchased years ago and haven’t had many chances to flex with. I wanted to show the band a spectrum with sharp and geometric on one end, and organic fantasy-inspired on the other.

The band decided they wanted to combine elements from options B and F, but make some changes to the letterforms to make it seem less fancy. I agreed; the ampersand in option B seemed a little bit too art nouveau, and the band wanted the F letterform to elongate over the O’s following it.

The end product combines letterforms from one of the original font offerings, with a typeface commonly associated with classic horror films, and then given a roughen pass in illustrator and finally each letter form got some chips cut out of it to evoke a cast iron finish, and some of the letters are broken apart to make the distressing more apparent. The band and label were both very happy with the end product and it looks great on the album art illustrated and designed by Courtney Trowbridge.