Saturday, September 30, 2023

The Hot Lips Logo



Graphic designer John Pasche was making a name for himself for his art deco concert posters in 1970, when The Rolling Stones contacted him about doing one for their 1970 European tour. They went back to him for album art, and that's when the famous logo that became known as Hot Lips was born.

The iconic logo was first seen inside the Stones' 1971 album Sticky Fingers. I remember it well- I went to the local record store, and every copy they had already had the shrink wrap torn because everyone wanted to play with the zipper in the front.

Great Big Story talked with Pasche about his experience in making the logo that became recognizable all over the world. The starting point was the tongue, and the lips came afterward. And they are not Mick Jagger's lips. More than 50 years later, Pasche still gets a kick out of seeing those lips in the wild. (via Laughing Squid)

2 comments:

  1. I also have a clear memory of first seeing the Sticky Fingers album. I had no interest in the Rolling stones at the time, but it was visible in the album bins at the store where I bought my Hot Wheels. The novel cover caught my eye. The shrink wrap was torn on each copy, and I figured people were tearing into them. Years later I in read that the torn shrink wrap was a practically unavoidable consequence of shipping.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That makes sense. The girl at the record store (who wasn't much older than I was- her parents owned it) blamed the customers and I took her word for it.

    ReplyDelete