Artist Research - Tobias Forge Early Design

"Outshitten Cunt" zine, issue 1

Tobias Forge is Ghost's frontman and "mastermind" - writing all the music, playing the instruments in the studio recordings and deciding stylistically where he wants to direct his project and how he wants everything to look from merchandise to stage shows. I've already made a post about Ghost and the parodying of Catholicism, but I want to look at Tobias' younger days and his connection to the Death Metal scene in Sweden where he is from.

• Like punk, death metal is a counter-culture / subculture, focusing on the rejection of religion (particularly Christianity and Catholicism), choosing to use imagery of the devil / satan, pentagrams, decrying bodies, skeletons, and foul language to provoke. Death Metal scenes are prevalent in Scandinavian countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden where the Church has a lot of power.

In his youth, Forge was a part of a number of Death metal projects including Superior and Repugnant, where he designed the logos and printed ephemera himself.

• Designing band logos: Each band is easily recognisable by a symbol, an emblem, that can easily be applied to a variety of media. It usually involves a shape or type stylised into a shape which can then be turned into a patch for fans' battle jackets where they display their favourite bands proudly. Forge designed the Ghost logo too. He tends to sketch out the idea using an ink pen before adding shapes and symbols to the lettering to define it.

 • Designing death metal zines. Aura of the hand-made, analogue, lo-fi. Cut, collaged and photocopied together. Black and white, cheap coloured paper. Quick process to produce a large quantity and reach a large audience within a scene to give contact details and band news.

 

• Zines contain record and gig reviews, information about the band and the members, news updates and contact information to reach the right people

• Tape trading and cassette design - easy to hand out at shows and build a network of connections. Lo-fi and cost effective

• How is this relevant to me and my practice? I've started to enjoy death metal, metal and the subculture surrounding it these past few years and I'm greatly interested in the ephemera created and shared with an audience. I like the element of the hand made, the crafting process, the conservation of constraints and dimensions, and see these as art pieces in themselves.

• As someone who has been letting go of the idea of perfect outcomes these past few years, the distressed and grungy visuals appeal to me ad give these pieces an element of authenticity and ownership. I'd like to create work like this in my practice.