Music logo design reflects the social trends of its time. The psychedelic letterforms on music festival posters or the album art of Jimi Hendrix reflected the ‘flower power’ acid-tripping generation of the 1960s. Remember the iconic wordmark logo of Australian rock band ACDC, or the bubbly fonts seen in early hip-hop music logos that drew inspiration from the graffiti art and street culture of New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.
Once upon a time people discovered their next favorite band from the New Musical Express or listening to local charts countdown the hits. Music discovery today is driven by technology ably assisted by social media. The music industry has expanded to include music and film distribution companies like The Orchard or streaming sites like Spotify and Tidal, who are now major global distribution platforms for artists and managers. Direct access to a global audience via these platforms has empowered musicians to supercharge their careers.
The question for many ambitious artists and musicians is how to build a brand for fans to easily discover your music. Visual design (album artwork, banners, channel art for social media and Spotify) has become an important tool used by artists to create an identity in a competitive global market.
You might own a nightclub, or perhaps you’re opening a bar or live music venue. If so, do you need a logo? If you’re an artist, music festival promoter, or a band manager, then a professional logo design is essential to make a statement. A strong visual identity will help fans discover your sound and connect with your musical vision. To help you get your started, we’ve curated a list of 112 music logos spanning hip-hop, electronica, rock’n’roll, country, jazz, and classical music genres to inspire your logo design project.
01. Hip Hop, R&B, Rap Music Logo Ideas
If the street and urban life inspires the music, so influences the visual design. These logos tend to be stylised, with a strong emphasis on graffiti, black and white and gold logo design.
Stencil art and wordmark logos reflect the graffiti culture and street fashion influencing the genre’s visual design. Portrait avatars are popular with a big focus on sleek graphic typography. Logomarks tend towards skull logos and crown motifs.
02. Rock and Metal Logo Ideas
From the devil horns to peace logos, rock’n’roll and metal logos are bold, featuring sharp and angular shapes. Common symbols include guitar logos, guitar picks or a hand logo rocking out. Logos tend to be heavy combining a symbol or picture with motif and wordmark design.
03. Folk and Country Music Logo Ideas
Logo design trends in folk and country music lean towards positive and negative space logos, with vintage logo design dominating along with retro aeasthetic and lots of handwritten, stylised typography. Color palettes are monochrome with black and white a common color combination in this genre.
04. Trance, Hardtrance, Psytrance, EDM, Electro, Techno, Disco and DJ Logo Ideas
Electronic music is booming with access to the means of production aka computer and music software so affordable that composers (like the Australian artist Flume) can create global dancefloor hits from their bedroom. Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is a worldwide phenonmenon and highly paid DJs tour the world to sold out shows.
Logo design trends in this category tend towards the futuristic. Monogram logos and heavy typography dominate. Bold, thick line-weights ensure that typography becomes the logo shape, with reduced reliance on logomarks or symbols, although a headphone logo remains a popular choice for DJs.
05. Logo Ideas For Trip-hop, Acid, Drum & Bass, Dub, Reggae, Break-beat, Jungle Artists
Logo design trends tend towards a bright color palette with iconic colors like yellow, green, red (Jamaican flag) are popular in the dub and reggae genre. Another characteristic is the subtle quirks in simple, modern logo designs.
06. Music Logo Ideas for Jazz, Classical Genres
For jazz bands and classical music artists, music logo design takes its cue from traditional serif fonts of early 20th century through to retro logos and modern wordmarks.
Highly stylized, the common motifs include piano logos, musical note logos and logos featuring instruments like saxaphones, drums and trumpets. Modern jazz logos also include microphones icons and minimalist, sleek visual elements.
Do you need to create a music logo?
The world of music logo design is diverse and varied with designers taking inspiration from many periods of music as well as art and design trends. Whether you’re a YouTube vlogger, music critic blogger, or a band manager, if you need a cool logo for your band, record label, or music group, we recommend two ways to you can a logo online that provide great value for money.
Hire a professional designeror launch a logo contest and get hundreds of music logo ideas from our global community of 600,000 professional graphic designers. If you need a custom music logo, just provide the brief, and the designers will respond with fantastic designs. Choose your favorite design and start using your logo online or offline to promote your band, touring schedule or album art.
Try the best logo maker. We recommend BrandCrowd’s logo template maker to get a professional logo in minutes. The AI powered music logo maker can generate hundreds of trance logo, DJ logo, band logo ideas for your business or event. You can edit the logos, customizing the colors and fonts of your band or business logo with your name. It takes only minutes to generate a unique logo tailored for you. You can play with the tool to make different logos to try before you buy. Walk away with a new logo in less than an hour.
Want more?
Try BrandCrowd, the best logo template maker for the music industry
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Written by Jo Sabin on Saturday, September 22, 2018
Jo Sabin is Head of Designer Community at DesignCrowd. She’s led the company’s public relations and social media programs since 2012. With more than ten years’ experience working with Australian and international tech startups in the creative industries, Jo has been instrumental in meeting DesignCrowd’s objectives in Australia and abroad. Get in touch via Twitter.