I had some friends over last night and we were in my office which has several Rolling Stones lithos hanging on the walls. My screen saver also has the Rolling Stones tongue on it and they wanted to know who came up with the tongue design. All agreed that this trademark was famously known worldwide.

Can anyone tell me who designed the famous tongue trademark and if that person or the Stones generate revenue from it?

It was Andy Warhol who made this famous and wonderful logo for the Stones. It was first shown on the Sticky fingers album in 1971 where Warhol also designed the cover. Lovely cover!!

This is wrong. Warhol did not design the tounge. I don't remember the name of the designer now but I remember to have read that he is quite unknown. Warhol DID design the Sticky Fingers cover though.

This is not A Warhol.

Yes, it is hard to find the designer's name. Warhol took all the publicity.

So is hard to find the name of the guy whose pants are featured on Sticky Fingers's inside cover- I remember he was a sort of Italian porn star.

I think it was a student of a art-school who got the assignment to desing something. I know i've the story somewhere but can't seem to remember where. But I'm pretty sure it was a student.

I'm just a Monkey Man

home.planet.nl/~verm6412/

"The famous tongue and lip design and countless variations of such has graced countless
official and unofficial Rolling Stones memorabilia and products since it first appeared
when the band formed "Rolling Stones Records" in 1971. Credit for the creation of the
original design has been mistakenly given to several people over the years. Many have
stated that Andy Warhol was the originator. He did design two album covers for the band,
but not the tongue design. In 1995, Billboard Magazine printed that it was from the mind
of Ruby Mazur. Discovering their mistake, they later corrected their statement, identi-
fying Mazur as the designer of the first official variation of the tongue design. With
further research later that year, Billboard definitely uncovered that the original
classic design came from John Pasch. Two years later, Mick Jagger confirmed that Pasch
was the originator of the fabled logo."

[www.t-shirtking.com]

Searching with google, I found this:

"The famous tongue and lip design and countless variations of such has graced countless
official and unofficial Rolling Stones memorabilia and products since it first appeared
when the band formed "Rolling Stones Records" in 1971. Credit for the creation of the
original design has been mistakenly given to several people over the years. Many have
stated that Andy Warhol was the originator. He did design two album covers for the band,
but not the tongue design. In 1995, Billboard Magazine printed that it was from the mind
of Ruby Mazur. Discovering their mistake, they later corrected their statement, identi-
fying Mazur as the designer of the first official variation of the tongue design. With
further research later that year, Billboard definitely uncovered that the original
classic design came from John Pasch. Two years later, Mick Jagger confirmed that Pasch
was the originator of the fabled logo."

[www.t-shirtking.com]

The story appears unclear:

[novogate.com]

[novogate.com]

(Thanks to Rocks Off)

that tongue logo all over the place

When the band formed "Rolling Stones Records" in 1971, their label
design was basic yellow, with a small red, white, and black
"tongue-and-lip design", as the copyright notices now say, on the
left side. The "tongue-and-lip", and countless variations, have
since appeared on all kinds of official (and unofficial) Stones
memorabilia and products. In a 1971 interview in _Rolling Stone_
magazine, Keith Richards claimed that the inspiration was the
Indian goddess Khali, and he went on to say that we could expect
many variations on the theme.

The credit for the original design has been mistakenly given to
several people over the years. The most frequent misattribution
is the claim that it is a creation of Andy Warhol's. Even a
researcher as thorogh as Philip Norman has mistakenly
repeated this legend. Warhol designed two Stones' album covers,
including the first LP released on "Rolling Stones Records", but
he did not supply the tongue. Mr. Norman claims elsewhere
that the earliest inspiration was a set designed by
Kenneth MacMillan for the Royal Ballet's 'Paradise Lost'.

As recently as March 1995, Billboard magazine printed a blurb
which incorrectly hinted that the 1971 design which would go on to
remain imprinted on thousands' of Stones' fans' minds came
from one Ruby Mazur. Billboard finally saw their mistake
and identified Mazur as the designer of the first officially
used variation on the tongue: the Rolling Stones Records
open-hole 7" single sleeve. First used in 1972 and last used
9 years later, the sleeve design has one eye, and uses the
middle record-label open hole as "the mouth" of an ill-defined face.
The design for the sleeve is memorable because
the record-label hole is NOT perfectly round, as is standard
industry practice, but a contour of the Mazur-designed
open mouth.

On April 8, 1995, Billboard definitely attributed the original
classic design to John Pasch.


[216.109.117.135]

Facts & Trivia

The Tongue Logo was designed by Andy Warhol (while
rumours says that it was John Pasch or Craig Braun).

In Mojo's Special Edition (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition) of august 2003 it has a whole article about the subject: "Hot Licks" at page 72-75.

It states that John Pache is the designer, being still a student at teh Royal College of Art, in 1970. The article also mentiones the stories about Warhol and Mazur being mistakenly identified as the designers of th logo.

Well, I wasn't there but I'd put my money on John Pasche.

He got only 50 GBP for the job plus a bonus of 200 GBP later on.

John Pasche can be contacted for freelance commisions at johnpasche@yahoo.co.uk

I'm just a Monkey Man

home.planet.nl/~verm6412/

Thanks "The Joker" for the links!

Yes, the story is unclear I won't put my hand on fire to say it is true but one fact is clear ANdy didn't design it from ZERO, he took ideas from Pasch and Mazur

Andy Warhol? John Pasch? no, it was Ruby Mazur??????



It's only rock 'n' roll

Ruby Mazur wants to be known for more than Rolling
Stones logo he created

By JOHN PRZYBYS


Ruby Mazur is talking with a visitor about his career as an
album designer, artist and illustrator when the phone rings.
It's his manager, calling from New York.

"We're just doing a thing about guess what?" Mazur
says, smiling delightedly at the coincidence. "The
mouth and tongue."

Then Mazur laughs, raises his voice in mock pained
frustration, and yells into the phone, "And I don't want
to talk about it anymore!"

Such is life when an artist's résumé includes creating
at least one version of what is probably the most
recognizable logo in rock 'n' roll: the Rolling Stones'
classic lips-and-tongue emblem.

Mazur designed one of the earliest versions of the logo
-- maybe the earliest, although that's where things
become a bit hazy -- for the Stones' "Tumbling Dice" single in 1972.

Actually, though, the lips-and-tongue logo is only one tiny part of the career
Mazur, 55, has forged during the past 35 years, bits and pieces of which can
be found on the walls of the Las Vegas apartment Mazur shares with Zeus and
Lucy, his very friendly, very large dogs.

There also are photos of Mazur with Billy Joel, Dennis Hopper, Alice Cooper,
Whoopi Goldberg, Harrison Ford and other celebrities. There are
announcements of past shows. There's a letter congratulating him for an
early-career Grammy nomination and a shadowbox-mounted illustration of the
Stones logo.

And, of course, there are dozens of his paintings either hanging on the wall or
sitting on the floor.

For the Brooklyn-born and Long Island-raised former New Yorker, art has been
a passion since the age of 5.

"I was always bored," Mazur recalls. "So my mother would tell my father, `Just
give him a pencil and teach him how to draw a glass.' So I had a million glass
drawings on my fridge."

By the time high school rolled around, Mazur had "just totally dedicated myself
to art."

After high school, and an initial rejection for low grades, Mazur was accepted
into art school in Philadelphia. On weekends, he would return home to New
York, where his father owned a nightclub. Mazur says he and his brother
signed groups to play in the club, and even managed a few bands themselves.

After art school, Mazur's interests in music and art meshed nicely when he
learned Paramount Records was searching for an art director. With youthful
boldness, Mazur says he bluffed his way into the job.

"I didn't even know the size of an album cover," Mazur says, laughing. "But I
went to the printer and I asked a million questions, and by (the next day) I was
designing album covers."

Mazur's timing turned out to be perfect. By 1971, record album covers had
become a form of alternative art unbounded by convention.

As an artist, Mazur says, "you just let your mind go, and the more insane of an
idea, the better it was."

"There was freedom of thinking and of expression. And kids back then who
went into a record store looked through the racks. You could have an album
nobody heard of, but if it looked cool they'd buy it."

After a year at Paramount, Mazur opened his own design studio in New York
and eventually opened satellite offices in London and Los Angeles.

Mazur says he designed more than 3,000 album covers during a period of
about 10 years for artists ranging from Roy Clark to Joe Walsh and for genres
ranging from jazz to pop to soundtracks.

But Mazur's most famous cover came early in his career, when, he says, Mick
Jagger himself asked Mazur to design a cover for "Tumbling Dice."

"First, I started thinking about doing a thing with the English flag," Mazur says.
"Then I just kept thinking about the music and the whole attitude, the whole sex
thing, and those lips (of Jagger's) really jumped out at you.

"Then I started doing a caricature of him, and that didn't work. Then, I just
zeroed in on the mouth and tongue and it worked."

However, Mazur's design isn't the one that's most familiar to music fans.
Mazur's logo features a stylized lips and tongue, but also includes two eyes as
a sort of stylized representation of Jagger's face.

The most commonly seen version of the logo, and the one used the most by
the band itself, features only lips and a tongue. And that variance has created
confusion through the years about the logo's lineage.

Mazur says he's seen the logo erroneously credited to Andy Warhol. One
online source cites Billboard magazine as attributing the original logo to artist
John Pasch and its first officially used variation to Mazur.

Mazur disagrees. Pasch, he says, "did a derivative of mine."

Mazur's recollection is that his logo predated Pasch's, and, as far as he
knows, his design for the single was the band's first use of the logo.

Still, the father of four says, "honestly, I swear on my children's lives, I don't
know who came first. I don't ever remember them giving me a logo with a
mouth and tongue, saying, `Do a variation on this.' But, then again, I couldn't
swear to it. It was so like in the same minute."

Nonetheless, the logo's tangled history has been a source of alternating
bemusement and frustration for Mazur through the years. A few years ago, a
New York newspaper story about a Mazur art show noted the artist's
association with the logo, but ran the wrong logo with the story.

"I even saw on one of those `Rock & Roll Jeopardy!' things (the question),
`Who did the (logo),' " Mazur says. "They said Andy Warhol and that was the
wrong answer."

How did Mazur react?

"I threw a beer can at it," he answers, laughing heartily.

On the other hand, Mazur saw another quiz show that gave him credit for the
logo.

"Hey, 50-50, I'll take it," he says, smiling.

Mazur's relative equanimity stems from the fact the logo represents only one,
and one very early, aspect of his career. In fact, he left the album design
business in the early '80s, "as soon as CDs came in," he says. "The fun was
over."

Mazur spent a few years doing illustration work for books, magazines, ads, TV
and film projects, then decided to work for himself. He worked first in a genre
called abstract illusionism, in which surrealistic designs are given depth so as
to appear, he says, as if "the paint was floating off the canvas."

Mazur did what he calls his "Squigglies" series, featuring rounded, snakelike
forms cavorting on surrealistic backgrounds, and, in 1985, had his first show
in New York City.

"(About) 1,500 people showed up and there was major press, and not one
piece was sold," he says. "Not one. The next day I was so depressed."

Mazur's brother conducted the post-mortem. He said, Mazur recalls, that
"people just don't get what you're trying to do. If you really want to be an artiste,
keep making `Squigglies' and don't eat. Or, get off of it and paint something
people will buy."

"It was hard to hear, but only your brother could tell you that. That's when I
re-evaluated and said, `Know what? It was ahead of its time.' "

A new theme came from a friend who'd just gotten a sales job with a cigar
magazine. The friend, Mazur says, suggested Mazur have the model he was
painting hold a cigar.

Mazur gave it a shot. And, he says, the painting sold for $25,000 two days
later.

So, Mazur says, laughing, "I started my cigar art collection," a whimsical
series featuring cigars as elements of iconic images or classic scenes: a
smiley face smoking a cigar, the Statue of Liberty smoking a cigar, the woman
in "American Gothic" smoking a cigar, even his own Rolling Stones logo
smoking a cigar.

About six years ago, Mazur also began painting a series featuring female
celebrities -- Calista Flockhart, Claudia Schiffer -- re-imagined as wild animals.
Most recently, Mazur has spent much of his time doing commissioned works
of people's pets.

"It's a huge hit," says Mazur, "and oddly enough, 9-11 has a lot to do with it.
People are retreating back to family, and pets are like kids to people."

The paintings range in price from $5,000 to $10,000 and beyond, and Mazur --
himself a serious dog lover -- clearly enjoys doing them.

"I'm doing it as an art form and not cheapie paintings," he says. "If you look at
the paintings I've done, they're really good paintings."

Mazur moved to Las Vegas two years ago with plans to open a gallery
featuring artwork created by rock stars, actors, actresses and other celebrity
friends. While an initial effort fell through, the gallery is still one of his goals.

"I have 40 celebrities who want to exhibit in my gallery," Mazur says.
"Musicians and actors respect me for being an artist. I'm not just a
corporation."

While he doesn't currently show his work in valley galleries, his art is available
on his Web site (www.rubymazur.com). Soon, he hopes to add a line of
original apparel and collectibles featuring his mouth-and-tongue logo.

Still, Mazur admits he's a bit weary of still having to talk about what may be his
most well-known work.

"I'm so sick and tired of hearing about it," he says, shaking his head. "It's like
30 years ago. But you know what? I wouldn't have gotten anyplace if I didn't do
that."

They talk about it in UNCUT,The stones issue about 18 months ago