During his first year at Université catholique de Louvain, Szpajdel joined Thierry Prince's fanzine
Septicore, as a writer and illustrator. He has also illustrated logos for posters of such films as
Mandy and
Lords of Chaos (both 2018) and
The Tell Tale Heart (2020). Since designing his first professional band logo for Belgian death metal band Morbid Death (featuring members that would later play in
Enthroned) in 1988, Szpajdel estimates to have drawn over 10,000 logos, mainly within the black metal, death metal and
dark ambient music scenes. The significant amount of work that Szpajdel has done in the
industry has led him to be nicknamed, originally by a fan in 2006, the
Lord of the Logos. The book showcases a selection of 2500 of his illustrations from over the years, accompanied by photographs taken by Szpajdel. When first announced in the 2010s, the second book's title was tentatively titled
Ancient Modernism; once it was picked up for publishing by Heavy Music Artwork, it was given a release date for September 2020 but was pushed back by several months. Szpajdel's illustrations and interviews have also appeared in the books
Logos from Hell: A Compendium of Death and Black Metal Logos (2008, re-printed 2015; Doomentia Press),
Black Metal: Beyond the Darkness (2012;
Black Dog Publishing),
Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult (2013,
Feral House),
Darkadya: The Book of Art From Below Vol. 2 (2016, Darkadya Books) and
Arte Arcana (2018; Heavy Music Artwork), and have been featured in such magazine as
Metal Maniacs,
Metal Hammer,
Terrorizer and
Vice. Szpajdel was also the subject of a documentary, appropriately titled
Lord of the Logos, which explores his life and work as cult artist and his decades-long career designing logos for the metal underground. The 12-minute documentary was
directed by Luke J. Hagan and had its United Kingdom
premiere on 2 December 2016 at the Two Short Nights Film Festival. == Style ==