It’s one of the bands biggest hit in hard rock historywith 200 million albums sold in almost 50 years of history and a good handful of songs that have become anthems of the genre, but it was his logo, whose The design was based on the letters of the Gutenberg Bible. This has transcended the world of music and become one over time Pop culture icon.
Today, a logo is a crucial element in a world where image is becoming increasingly important. Rock groups in particular have understood this for decades This emblem was an essential means of conveying their identity and musical style.. And also to stand out and be recognizable on every stage and in every country in which they performed or in which their records were sold.
In the case of AC/DC we have to go back to 1973, the year in which young brothers Angus and Malcom, who came to Australia with their family from Scotland to escape poverty, decided to form a band at the suggestion of their older brother George to be founded .from stone.
The sewing machine
The group’s name was chosen by Malcom and Angus after reading this AC/DC acronym on the back of his sister Margaret’s sewing machine. It’s that simple. It was a simple inscription on the surface of the device that indicated that it had an adapter that converted the alternating current from a home’s electrical outlet into the direct current needed for its operation. And this electric and energetic aspect fits his musical style perfectly.
In the band’s first video clip from 1974, the group’s name appeared in a somewhat rudimentary logo, probably self-made, on drums. The initials AC and DC appeared separately, each in a cube (geometric figure) and with a lightning bolt in the center, but above the initials without dividing them. At this moment, even if only for a short time, is the singer of the band Dave Evans. A few months later, the one that was always remembered took its place Bon Scott.
With the release of his first album High voltage (1975), which was initially only released in Australia, the logo has already undergone a small refinement. They were now thick black letters, very close and consistent. An orange flash appeared in the middle of the two parts of the name.
A year later the group released their second album, again only to the Australian market. TNT (1976). This time the logo appeared on Orange like the letters created by smudging a spray on a surface using a stencil. The hand of a creative person has not yet been appreciated. The team seemed more focused on already achieving some success in their country.
Signing to Atlantic Records
It was precisely at this point that Atlantic Records came knocking on their door, a record company that from that moment on would help the Australian band distribute their music to the international market. Meanwhile, Albert Records would continue to be responsible for local distribution in Australia for the time being.
An important personality of the American record label Atlantic Records was its creative director, Bob Defrin, who worked with the Young brothers for decades and was responsible for designing their album covers. Defrin contacted a young 24-year-old graphic designer to design typography that would add personality to the group’s initials. It was about the Californian Gerard Huerta, who previously worked for CBS Records and designed covers for renowned groups. Its logo appears in the international edition of High voltage from 1976, which brings together songs from AC/DC’s first two works that were already released on the Australian market. Now the letters are black again with a green border, the AC and DC parts are tilted in opposite directions, and the beam separating them is white with yellow borders.
1977, the key year
It was a larger, less rough work, but it would not be the definitive one. The key year is 1977, when the new album was released Let it be rock, Gerard Huerta pressed the and button designed the AC/DC logo, which survives to this day. The letters became angular, including a diamond-shaped end to the letter A. But where did Huerta’s inspiration come from, which ultimately turned out to be so long-lasting and successful? Therefore, as the creative himself recognized from the Gutenberg Bible, although the work and model were strictly earthly in nature, a kind of heavenly illumination or inspiration could not be denied in their origin.
The young creative chose gothic lyrics because he thought they would fit well with the cover that Defrin was working on while the band played under dark skies. “When I was at CBS, I wrote some lyrics for the cover of a Blue Öyster Cult album called On your feet or on your knees. For some reason, the idea of using biblical letters for this logo, but depicting it with a bevel and in metal came to mind. I had these lyrics inspired by Gutenberg and when it came time to write the lyrics for AC/DC, I used Gutenberg with a twist. It’s orange, has borders and all straight lines. There are no curves. It’s very spicy“Huerta told the story for the portal Overwhelming magazine.
In a way, the AC/DC logo contributed to this Gothic typography became a kind of model for groups and artists of the genre.. His own designer recognized it some time later: “I went back before to see if anything like that had been done, and I really didn’t see anything. It became the defining aspect of the Heavy metal“.
But despite the fact that his work has appeared on millions of covers since 1977, Huerta, who says he still has the order and the invoice for the order, received no more than a single deposit. And he has never claimed copyright or other compensation for this design. AC/DC was not his only recognized work. Huerta, which is still active today, has designed logos and album covers for notable artists and groups such as Boston, Foreigner, Chicago, Ted Nugent, Willie Nelson and Blue Oyster Cult. In addition, he stood out for his typographic creations and the creation of logos for companies such as HBO, Calvin Klein or Pepsi, as well as for publications such as Time, People j PC Magazine.
A few more changes
Although AC/DC would change theirs insignia in his next album, Performance (1978), which on this occasion opted for an electrified white logo, returned permanently and definitively to the one created by Huerta in his subsequent albums. Emblematic covers like Highway to Hell (1979) – which contained a version censored by the record company in the United States -, Back in black (1980) o For those who want to rock (1981) would already bear this trademark, which is still preserved today.
There was only one notable exception: the cover of the international edition of Dirty deeds are done dirt cheap (1981), which had already been published in Australia in 1976, was created by the renowned graphic design studio Hipgnosis, founded in 1967 by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, who had already worked with groups such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
This cover was a very big conceptual change (and daring, considering the Australian group’s already distinct style) and inserted the letters AC/DC into a fuchsia that were more associated with psychedelics, glamorous or the surf sound as the powerful rock that makes them unmistakable Riffs guitar
It should be taken into account that the Vinyl covers They were a fundamental space in defining the groups’ overall visual and brand strategy. For Huerta himself, this space was “the place to be if you were an artist, illustrator or photographer.” That is why the work of Bob Defrin, art director of Atlantic Records, was also fundamental in the case of AC/DC Meaning. “A good cover won’t help a good album, but a bad cover can destroy it,” he admitted on the podcast. AC/DC, beyond the thunder.
14 albums and 43 years later, the legendary founding of Hard rock of Scottish origin, continues to bear, as a distinctive personal symbol, the letters that can be found today not only on the covers of millions of records, but also on the titles of records T-shirts and sweatshirts which can be found every year in major fashion stores around the world. These four simple gothic characters, separated by a lightning bolt, have transcended the boundaries of rock and even music and are now icons of popular culture.
