The £50 Student Design That Became Rock's Most Famous Logo

The Rolling Stones’ iconic tongue-and-lips logo was designed in 1970 by John Pasche, then a 24-year-old art student at the Royal College of Art. Mick Jagger saw some of Pasche’s work at an exhibition and commissioned him to create a poster and logo for the band’s upcoming European tour. The fee? A flat £50 — roughly $75 at the time.

Pasche has said the design was directly inspired by Jagger’s own mouth and the band’s rebellious attitude. Jagger specifically wanted something that captured the “anti-authoritarian” energy of the group, and Pasche took visual cues from the Hindu goddess Kali’s protruding tongue — a symbol of raw, forceful expression. The result was a simple, striking line drawing that first appeared on the inner sleeve of the 1971 album Sticky Fingers, designed by Andy Warhol.

The logo quickly became a permanent fixture. It replaced the band’s early typographic wordmark and has been used on nearly every album, tour, and piece of merchandise since — often tweaked in color but rarely altered in form. In 2008, it was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s permanent exhibition as one of the most