Who designed The Rolling Stones' tongue and lips logo?

That iconic logo wasn’t dreamed up by a big ad agency — it came from a 22-year-old art student named John Pasche. In 1970, the Rolling Stones approached the Royal College of Art looking for poster designs. Pasche didn’t get the poster gig, but Mick Jagger liked his work enough to commission a logo.

Pasche later said the inspiration was Jagger’s own mouth — those big lips are directly modeled from a photo of Jagger. The protruding tongue has a secondary origin story: Pasche was also riffing on the Indian goddess Kali, who often sticks out her tongue in depictions. So it’s part rock star mouth, part Hindu goddess. The logo first appeared on the Sticky Fingers album in 1971 and has barely changed since.