anticon.: Logo #294

Shaun Koplow from the anticon. label: "The ant was designed by the great Aaron Horkey of Burlesque of North America. To my best knowledge, the first appearance was on our first 12" in 1999, "Anticon Presents Hip-Hop Music For the Advanced Listener." Pretty braggadocios title, eh? Oh the past! Aaron used to go by the name Abuse and designed the Rhymesayers / Atmosphere Headshots tape series art, among other things."

Logo #152: Autechre

Sean Booth and Rob Brown of Autechre checked in recently about the origins of this rather iconic slice of simplicity. Booth: "The logo was a simple splice of the "a" and "e" from "avant-garde", which we were using when we did the "lp5" sleeve. I'm not sure it even counts as a logo 'cos it's just type; there's no work there apart from kerning." Brown: "From what I can remember - if that one's sourced from "Gantz Graf" material (it looks as if it is), it was Alex Rutterford responsible for that kind of example used on "Gantz Graf" artwork. But Sean & I did the the original joined-up "ae" that started in the "lp5" promo postcards / stickers. Alex based his version on those earlier logos and I think he modified the font." Booth: "Also, it's probably worth mentioning what Rob said is right: there are many variations 'cos every time we re-used it or another designer employed it, we just specified the font; we left the spacing and sizing up to them. There are slight differences between each one. It's also worth mentioning that for now we are using a new ae logo designed by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic; he also did the sleeve for the new album "Quaristice"."

Logo #111: Aphex Twin

Aphex Twin's logo was created, not by Dan Parkes as some sources assert, but by designer Paul "Terratag" Nicholson in 1992. Nicholson: "Dan Parkes was the illustrator of the artwork that appeared on the "Ventolin" release. A s far as I know, that is the only artwork that Dan created for Richard. A little piece of trivia about the logo: at the time I met Richard, I had being doing artwork for a San Francisco-based skatewear label called Anarachic Adjustment. Their 'thing' at the time had been the whole "alien" vibe (remember, we are talking 1991). So, I had been creating loads of designs based around the letter 'A' which got knocked back. Richard, having seen the work in progress, liked where I was going with the amorphic shape and from these I developed what is now the Aphex 'A.' The logo was finished early 1992, in time to appear on the "Xylem Tube" sleeve."