Buzzcocks band logo
How a design student created a wordmark that became an icon of UK punk. In memory of songwriter and singer Pete Shelley, 1955–2018.
“Love Battery” poster, 1977
Released in autumn 1977, “Orgasm Addict” was the first single by punk band Buzzcocks, following their debut EP Spiral Scratch. It also marked the first appearance of the band’s logo in its final form. A proto-version had been featured on a promotional poster designed by 21-year-old Malcolm Garrett, then in his second year at Manchester Poly.
“It was my first piece of professional work, and my first thing for Buzzcocks, which led to a relationship that continues to this day. People don’t really know the story of that original poster. I screen printed it by hand, in college. I was listening to Buzzcocks lyrics and this song Love Battery, from the first album, stood out.” — Malcolm Garrett, It’s Nice That
Over on BandLogoJukeBox, Jim K Davies has a detailed account of how the logo came to life:
[Garrett had] used the largest sized Compacta Regular Italic Letraset he could find, rubbed down the relevant letters, photographed them, printed them onto bromide paper, sliced them down the middle, stuck them down on board, and inked in the gap in Rotring pen. “It was a bit tricky, particularly to get the typeface thin enough,” he recalls.
But he wasn’t quite happy with this early incarnation. “I felt the spacing around the Zs wasn’t quite right, so I modified them,” he recalls. The new and improved logo duly took pride of place in the bottom right corner of ‘Orgasm Addict’ — in a dark blue, running on the vertical. Its forward-slanting letterforms give it a sense of attack, the outside Z’s a jagged punky edge. It was accompanied by a striking montage of an iron-headed woman created by Linder. The iron came from an Argos catalogue, while the female torso was lifted from a ‘top shelf’ magazine.
The logo with the nested double Z would appear on virtually all subsequent releases, in various forms including hand-painted and angular interpretations, and stayed in use until this day.
Detail of a Letraset “instant lettering” sheet with (upright) Compacta in 144pt. The largest available size for Compacta Italic was 72pt, according to a catalog from 1990.
This comparison shows unmodified Compacta Italic (resetting using the digital version by Bitstream) next to the Buzzcocks logo as it’s featured on the “Orgasm Addict” sleeve. See also the Soundgarden mark for another band logo with selectively elongated letterforms.
“Orgasm Addict”, United Artists Records, 1977.
The rounded sans-serif caps used for the song title are probably not made with dry-transfer type, or any other type. They rather resemble the letterforms found in templates available for pantographic scribing devices like Keuffel & Esser’s Leroy. The image shows the related Stano-Script by Standardgraph. See also “From Lettering Guides to CNC Plotters ”— A Brief History of Technical Lettering Tools”. Oscar & Ewan’s Leroy (Colophon, 2012) is a digital font family based on a similar lettering template.
Back cover. The title of the B-side, “Whatever Happened to?”, is rendered in caps from Rockwell Light, another face that was available as rub-down type from Letraset. This, however, is metal Rockwell, see the comments below.
7″ record with small print on the label in Univers.
The logo as it appears on nine studio albums released between 1978 and 2014, including sliced and sprayed variants.
An outlined version of the logo, used as stage decoration at a Buzzcocks concert in 2010.
Pinback button posted by Malcolm Garrett to commemorate Buzzcocks singer Pete Shelley, 1955–2018.
10 Comments on “Buzzcocks band logo”
Thank you. Nice post.
Just an extra note on typography for the Orgasm Addict sleeve. All the type on the back cover (including the Rockwell assumed above to be Letraset) was handset by me in cold metal in the typography department of Manchester Polytechnic’s Graphic Design building, which in 1977 was in an annexe in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester. (The building is now a hotel)
Great to hear from you personally!
Thanks for the extra info, it’s much appreciated. An interesting mix, in terms of production means! I’ve added a note to that caption. Is the other assumption correct; are the rounded sans-serif caps on the front cover based on a scribing device?
Yes, the lettering for ‘Orgasm Addict’ itself was done with drawing office lettering stencil and Rötring pen (probably 0.5mm).
Malc
Am I drunk, or did you tell me you had some inspiration from a shitty fashion ad?
For the poster, yes. The image is, as you note, culled from a tiny b/w advert in a newspaper for ‘one-legged tights’. I just ripped it out and enlarged it!
The montage by Linder uses source material from a ‘Men’s’ mag and a domestic appliances catalogue.
Malcolm Garrett’s work for Buzzcocks is featured in the latest episode of ARTE’s Gymnastique / Flick Flack. The clip illustrates the importance of dry transfer lettering for the DIY approach in the punk era, and also mentions Daniel Miller’s use of Letraset sheets for the visual identity of Mute Records. The video is available in French and German (until 11 April 2024).
See also Fast Product’s early output – specifically The Human League’s “Being Boiled” which utilised Letraset Architectural Symbols AA115 and AA134.
And all this time I’d thought it was Futura!
In fact, when he visited Better Badges in 77 I told Greg Shaw it was, and he promptly adopted it for Bomp! See https://bit.ly/3o2FNu6 and https://bit.ly/3txzQ9y!
Is that one of my badges or did you remake?
Hi Joly, I’ve embedded the image you linked to.