Logo #60: Nitzer Ebb

From Simon Granger, designer of the until-now apocryphal crest and sheaves: "The logo was originally drawn manually by myself using Corel Draw in late 1994. The NE initials were initially created using straight forward rectangles then welded together in Corel and 'node edited' to create the circular effect. The lower case type underneath was a font supplied with Corel called Serpentine and is the closest I have got to using a font with serifs (apart from two Barry Adamson sleeves). The Olympic-style leaf element was traced in Corel from a photo of a badge I found on the web, and then flipped and duplicated to form the two crossing over. The initial idea came from Bon (Harris, Nitzer Ebb shouter and percussionist), as he had an idea of using a design that had a look and feel of an classic car type badge. The final overall effect still radiates the typical muscular / military / minimal NE aesthetic but in a more of an emblem rather than just typography. The design was only ever officially used on the inside sleeve of the "Big Hit" album in a small version and a knocked back watermark image behind the lyric sheet - however, I think it is in use on various t-shirts and around the web."

Nitzer Ebb were a British band of pioneers - in the early '80s, along with Front 242, D.A.F. and Stomach Basher - of EBM, the so-called "electronic body music" made up of a relentlessly syncopated series of shouts that affected everything from Parisian haute couture to homely girls in the American heartland looking vaguely interesting because of all the chintzy vinyl, tall stompy boots and pierced-lip sullenness. Apart from that, Nitzer Ebb had a few really compelling pop singles that are great to exercise to and still stand on legs of nostalgia and awkward embarrassment that only a pre-Internet world can still keep hidden.