Magazine / Metal Style in Pop Culture

There has recently been a trend of major pop influencers choosing to adopt the 'metal style' into their own branding and merchandise. 

Justin Bieber recently reinventing his merchandise and tour collateral through the work of Mark Riddick, an artist who has designed many logos for bands such as Dethklok, The Black Dahlia Murder, Suicide Silence, Devourment. 

Similarly is Kanye West, who used a logo that is borrowed from the likes of Metallica's iconic logotype: 

Then there is also Rihanna who used a death metal style logo for her own name during one of her shows: 

These examples demonstrate that many artists who do not produce metal music are utilising the aesthetics rather than the content to push a very focused theme, likely influenced by each other. Although it could be viewed as a negative by many die hard metal fans out there who don't care for Justin Bieber at all, it is also a way of interpreting the image of metal as a more accepted genre. Metal has always been a culture of acceptance of the 'different', embracing and uniting in the way people express themselves and a love for heavy music - and sometimes individuals who are part of this subculture have been penalised because of it. These icons emerging in pop culture can be a sign of the times, in that icons can be borrowed to utilise a brand rather than communicate what the content is, and it is slightly misleading. 

However, in terms of my project, it is interesting that these artists are using icons like this, as it shows that picking and mixing various aspects of the metal style can be done, however I need to ensure that the magazine can do this in a way that still shows the content is about metal, even if the composition is more 'modern'.