Gonemage Identity

Gonemage is one of the latest in a long line of genre-agnostic, dizzying projects masterminded by guitarist, composer, and all-round insane person Garry Brents. What began as a video-game-themed “side quest” to his long-running blackened screamo band Cara Neir has since ballooned into its own universe of chiptune madness. Gonemage is a pixelated cauldron of black metal, shoegaze, diverse electronic strains, and, most recently, even bedroom pop.

I’ve worked with Gonemage in the past, providing guest vocals to his second album Sudden Deluge, and I was thrilled when he requested a new logo and merchandise. Because of the project’s video game theme I was asked to provide a logo inspired by one of my Brents’ favourite games: Namco’s 1995 shooter Time Crisis.

The first task was to create a typeface that emulated the bold, angular title text common in that era of video games. I chose proportions inspired by the original logo as well as iconic (and, in my opinion, tacky and oft-misused) early-internet title fonts like Impact and Headline.

The next step was to slant the text and give it colour, taking the original Time Crisis’ metallic sky blue gradient and red outline, bevel, and drop shadow. Finally, I added a crosshair to complete the look.

However, something was missing to truly convey the Gonemage aesthetic: pixels. Much of Brents’ music calls back to childhood, nostalgia, and the aesthetics we grew up with that influence our art as adults. To make the logo feel like it had leapt through a 90s time portal, he only choice for the final logo was, of course, a pixelation filter.

The next task was to create new merchandise using this logo, and in keeping with the theme of the project’s most recent string of albums Handheld Demise, Astral Corridors, and Celestial Invocation, we settled on a space theme. I wanted to create a design that would represent Brents’ musical and artistic journey over the years as a journey through the cosmos.

The Whirlpool Galaxy (NGC 5194) is a shockingly beautiful spiral galaxy in the Canes Venaciti constellation, located approximately 32 million light-years away. It is a particularly good artistic inspiration because it is oriented face-on to us, meaning that we have a clear view of its hypnotizing structure. It was the perfect representation of Gonemage’s astral journey to the furthest depths of arcana.

The design took the form of a heads-up display from a spaceship on a millennia-long journey to the centre of the whirlpool. To maintain a semblance of scientific accuracy, I consulted with astrophysicist Tristan Fraser, who helped me to imagine the data that an astronaut might want to see on their HUD. I also opted for a cleaner, white version of the logo to fit with the HUD’s modern sci-fi aesthetic.

As an easter egg, I wanted to represent different points on Brents’ musical journey in a visual way. Snippets of binary code are references to previous projects of his, and the bar graphs at the bottom represent his previous five albums by length.