Top: Marilyn Manson’s new logo. Bottom: A Nine Inch Nails logo that the band used circa 1990.
Here’s a delectable morsel for those of you who are clamoring for branding news from the godforsaken realm of the Hot Topic t-shirt rack. That blathering old vampire Marilyn Manson has unveiled a new logo in association with his new album – and boy, does it look an awful lot like an old logo of his former mentor and cryptmate, Trent Reznor. The image above compares the new MM logo with a nineties-era NIN logo that was used on the ‘Sin’ single and other band merch. The two logos use extremely similar shapes to form jagged symmetrical compositions with vertical pillars in the center.
Nine Inch Nails’ debut, the brooding synth-goth masterpiece Pretty Hate Machine, is one of my favorite albums of all time. Reznor has since become known as an early embracer of the digital music industry and an Oscar-winning film score composer. Manson, on the other hand, still makes stuff I guess. Reznor once accused Manson of stabbing him in the back and being a “malicious guy [who] will step on anybody’s face to succeed.” Does this new logo prove that the old bat still has bite? I think the similarities in the designs speak for themselves.
D Harvell says
I’m so glad you wrote this. I saw that new MM logo and had an awful case of flashback. I kept telling myself, “No… that new MM logo isn’t a ripoff of an old NIN logo, it’s just coincidence. Right? Right??? I guess I’m not the only one who noticed that the logos are a near exact match. Thanks for showing me that I am not insane. At least, not in THIS particular manner, anyway.
Jesse-Damon Bond says
Well, this is extremely bias. For starters, you obviously value NIN more and automatically discredit anything that Manson does, simply because it isn’t NIN. Secondly, how many variables on “NIN” and “MM” can you possibly come up with before they end up looking similar – because they do, but there are only so many design variations of those letters. I mean, “MM” and “NIN” look almost identical as is. The same with “MM” and “MIW”.