Rolling Stones – Tattoo You album art
Tattoo You is an album by the Rolling Stones, released in 1981 on the band’s own Rolling Stones Records. It opens with the hit “Start Me Up” (yes, that’s the song used by Microsoft in their Windows 95 marketing campaign). From iorr.org:
The cover art, like the cover of Goat’s Head Soup, featured Mick Jagger on the front and Keith Richards on the back. No images of Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, or Ron Wood are found anywhere on the album. Jagger is covered in tribal tattoos and set against a bold red background with the band name and album title above. The labyrinth of tattoos was illustrated by Christian Piper [using photographs by Hubert Kretzschmar as the basis]. […] A great many people did not recognize the face as Jagger’s and more than a few wondered who the ‘woman’ on the cover was. […] Asked why only two Stones appeared on the album Kretzschmar said, “It was a decision that Mick and Keith must have made. I remember Charlie was at the photo shoot with both of them, no effort was made to get him to pose or be part of it.
According to Kretzschmar,
Peter Corriston’s claim that he originated the concept, is […] not true. Peter had a typesetter who set a few title type variations, which was the extent of his alleged design.
Detail.
The variation that was finally chosen uses an open and shaded setting of Kabel, easily recognizable by its high-waisted A and the asymmetrical Y. One such ready-made variant is shown in the 1976 Lettergraphics catalog as Kabel Neon. The song titles are printed in all-caps Helvetica, red on green.
Glyph set of Kabel Neon as shown in a catalog by Typeshop, a European chain of typesetting studios that carried typefaces by Lettergraphics.
In memoriam Charlie Watts (1941–2021) who, before he became the drummer of the Rolling Stones, had worked as graphic designer at the London-based advertising company Charlie Daniels Studios.
2 Comments on “Rolling Stones – Tattoo You album art”
Kabel Neon made an appearance in a Chartpak catalogue. It was adopted by them before that catalogue was published in 1986.
Indeed, the Tattoo You (1981) LP cover was timely for the early 1980s minimal new wave sound. The visual aesthetics, black and white mark making and androgynous head shot of Jagger had a rhythmic appeal at the time. Of course there is the early Soviet Cinema film poster influences from Battleship Potyomkin (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Dobrov’s Borders of the USSR Are Sacred and Inviolate (1969) and almost any OSPAAAL poster prior to 1980s.