Pennywise had their visual "meh" designed by Fred Hidalgo in 1991. Hard to believe they've been going for 21 years now; the band's the age of a grown-up but they're still spastic nerfbags.
Frederic Taccone, first bassist of Orange County punk band D.I. reports, "The D.I. dog came from a round silver-and-red coral pin/button about the size of a 25-cent piece that I found and bought at the swap meet at the Orange Drive-In; I think it's from the Indians in Mexico. I was opposed by the band but I insisted on this being used for the band as a symbol, as I was sick of the usual stuff of the day. We were kind of different and I wanted something that when you looked at it, you didn't know what kind of band we were. Dianna "Mac" Macalear was guitarist Tim Maag's girlfriend and a graphic artist. I asked her to come up with a way of writing "D.I." that looked like something between hieroglyphics and street graffiti, and she came up with the style of writing that appeared with the dog on our first five-song EP, later re-released as a full-length album on XXX called "Team Goon." Dianna did the drawing/direct copy of the pin in 1983."
Designed by Alan Forbes for Offspring in 2000. Not just another skull ready for inking on one's body, it's a subtle and knowing meditation on the force of one's intent; how deeply and brightly it can burn - and how easily snuffed out such schemes are when it comes to the ravages of time / life / fatigue (circle one or more). Designed for the band's "Conspiracy of One" LP, it points out that the cosmos of vengeance and lust for justice burning in one's head can be - without the support and reinforcement of like-minded individuals - doomed to failure if it's just one man tearing up the plans.
The "skull and crossbolts" logo was designed in 1998 by bassist Paul Miner for the Orange County hardcore unit Death By Stereo, from which he departed to start a second life as a producer and engineeer. Miner: "I originally designed the Death By Stereo logo, and it first appeared on our debut 7" ("Fooled By Your Smile") in 1998. It was a bum-out to see the logo in the "Death Proof," the Quentin Tarantino movie, but they didn't actually use the same logo. I saw a promo poster about one-and-a-half years before it came out, in which they were using the actual logo, and I got pretty fired up. But somewhere along the line they realized there might be some copyright trouble, so they changed it ever-so-slightly...oh well."
Designed by Shattered Faith lead vocalist Spencer Alston Bartsch around 1978 or 1979. The (abstract) cross, the communal circle, even the abstract halo à la da Vinci's "The Last Supper" - it's all there. An Orange County punk band that started around the same time as T.S.O.L. and Social Distortion, their later logo - that of a skull casting the shadow of a crucifix - further illustrated themes of doubt and longing both political and religious. Religion in punk rock is always a dicey opera, if only because punk's dedication to rebellion and libertinism makes the appearance of religion at best intrusive, and at worst, violently unnecessary. Possibly the solace that the church takes is that if the China White and the Stoli doesn't get to them, reformation and religion ultimately might. When they weren't overturning the tables of the money-lenders, Shattered Faith occasionally showed up on interesting things like their Spot-produced tracks on the brilliantly titled New Underground "Life Is Boring So Why Not Steal This Record" compilation LP, alongside Germs, Zurich 1916, Carl Stone, and L.A. Free Music Society's The Doo-Dooettes.
