Sometimes you need to design a mark for a Finnish Heavy Metal band. Well you know that the greatest heavy metal logos of all time look basically the same. Metallica and Judas Priest, Slayer and AC/DC, and of course KISS. Look at them all. All basically totally the same. Sharp and shiny, a 3D version and a flatfaced version. And today we’ve got RECKLESS LOVE by designer/artist James White.

Now this sort of madness is simple to do once you’ve got a nice typography set in place, but you’ve got to know that the type is vital. The type is like the metal in heavy metal. If you don’t have the metal, all you’ve got is the heavy – and then you’re Marty.

This band we’re talking about here is Reckless Love. It’s reckless.

Olli (the lead singer) and I started hammering through the logo style, which went through a few different versions before we settled on the final design. We both wanted something big, like Metallica or Judas Priest, but still captured the fun of the group’s sound. I posted a few of the different iterations above to show how the process went, from the stripped down vectors to the final renders. As for the cover of the single they wanted something bright and colorful, which I was happy to hear ’80s metal goodness.

Check all the different iterations below and decide if you can see the one that’s final. Hint: it’s the one at the top.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies Album Art category.

Above and below are a couple examples of fabulous inspirations for the Reckless Love title mark design. Note that they’re from different ages in each of the bands’ histories, but they’re all part of the overarching identity.