Sometimes i received messages where people ask how the Saturnus logo was made. So this is the history behind the creation of the Saturnus logo. 

It all started well on a gray cold Doomy October day in 1995 where I was 19 and a hopeful young freelance illustrator at the Fort Kox comic studio in Copenhagen. I was, making fantasy and Viking inspired comics and illustrations. My dream was to make comics, covers and logos for metal bands.

Inside the door was a young man with red forest man's shirt. It was Kim Larsen (Him from the later Of the Wand and the Moon). He told me he was looking for a illustrator to make a logo for his metal band. When I was the only one in the drawing room who heard metal, I was naturally interested in the task. I asked what the band was called and said it was called Saturnus. Great I said, I know them well.

I had heard the band on a combination CD ”Fuck you we are from Denmark Vol. 3 ". In addition, I had seen them the year before at a Progress Red Labels concert in Rock Amar. With a lot of cool Danish underground bands. Saturnus was/is great live. So I was ready to make a cool logo for Saturnus. So we agreed that I could make some suggestions that they could come and look at.

In 1995, I had no computer and photoshop was very expensive. So I had to copy text types from a Letraset text book and put them together and draw the rest over on a light table and make it all by hand. Very old school. I contacted Saturnus again and Kim, Thomas and Brian came by and looked at the logos and they were not completely satisfied. They want a logo with a bit of gothic letters. So I drew on and made this suggestion.

It turned out that Saturnus had misinformed me. They wanted something gothic like the band Anathema logo.
So I drew on and made these suggestions.

They were very happy with these suggestions, but Saturnus thought they were too much like the anathema's logo. The font was ok, but they would like to see a presentation with some other Viking pattern in the background. In addition, they would also like to see what the text looked like when the Letter S's did not face each other. So I went back to the drawing board and got this suggestion.

Saturnus was still slightly in doubt about what they want and was slightly in doubt as to which direction to go. The project stalled a bit and Saturnus wanted to sleep on it.

Then one day Kim Larsen came by and saw that I was working on a concept drawing for some fantasy cartoon project Ulveklingen I was working on.

Kim was pretty crazy about the Viking pattern I had made at the bottom. And he asked if he should not get a copy with and show the band. The Viking pattern was inspired by a find from the Viking era at Mammen in Jutland.

I had drawn the motif on the ax head and even added and deselected some details.

So Kim got a copy to show to the rest of the group. They returned and wanted to see the band name on top of the Viking pattern and with the dots that were on the ax head.

So I came up with this suggestion.

Saturnus was extremely satisfied with some adjustments. They were slightly in doubt with all the dots in the logo but decided to keep the dots in the end.

So I started with the clean drawing of the logo. The logo was first used on Saturnus demo tape Paradise belongs to youp in 1996. The demo was quickly withdrawn when the band got a record deal with Voices of Wonder. The final result was printed on Saturnus debut album Paradise belongs to you in 1997.

Many years later, Kim Larsen told me that the logo / original drawing was unfortunately lost. Voices of Wonder or the printer had thrown away the original drawing in the process and Kim Larsen had to sign a copy of the logo. So unfortunately, the original logo cannot be displayed thanks to Voices of Wonder. So you have to settle for a picture of the record.

Creating the Saturnus logo was a learning and exciting process. And great to see people walking around with a Saturnus T-shirt for concerts and festivals like Wacken, Copenhell, Roskilde and WGT. etc. I have also been sent photos of Saturnus fans around Europe who have had the logo tattooed.

I have since been contacted by bands who would like me to create a logo for them. And many of them want something in the style of Saturnus but they didn't manage to do anything that was cooler ;-)