The Rolling Stones were in the news recently — not for their 50th anniversary, but because their fans apparently hate the logo that’s been designed to commemorate said anniversary. In fairness, you can hardly blame them, since the image in question involves sticking the band’s signature lips-and-tongue image on, um, a silverback gorilla. Designer Walton Ford seems pretty happy with the backlash; “The last people I wanted to please,” he told Rolling Stone this week, “were Rolling Stones fans.” Anyway, love it or hate it, the logo got us thinking about some truly dreadful exercises in band branding. Here are some of our favorites.
Tool
Say what you like about the band, but this is the sort of thing designed exclusively for the amusement and aesthetic sensibility of 14-year-old boys.
K.I.Z.
See also: German hip hop crew (yes, such a thing exists) K.I.Z., whose logo seems designed to draw attention to the fact that they make music and also… um, like dicks? Have dicks? Are dicks? You can draw your own conclusions, really, but either way, the end result looks like something that mildly rebellious teenagers might draw on their pencil cases.
Phish
It’s our band name! In psychedelic colors! In the shape of a fish! Pass the Cherry Garcia, dude!
Dave Matthews Band
Great unanswered questions here: what does a naked fire dancer have to do with Dave Matthews? Why does the dancer not have a head? And why does anybody like this band?
Klaxons
There have been several iterations of this logo, and they’re all various degrees of bewildering because they seem to have nothing at all to with the band’s music and general aesthetic — quite what a stick-‘n’-poke variation on the Spacemen 3 logo has to do with nu-rave is anyone’s guess.
Levellers
Conversely, this looks exactly like what the band sound like, which isn’t such a great thing, to be honest.
Soon to Be Forgotten
If only. Sadly, we will be seeing this in our nightmares for quite some time.
Average White Band
Shout out to the average white patriarchy!
Green Day
This pretty much epitomizes the moment at which Green Day metamorphosed from wiener-obsessed Californian doofuses into latter-day U2 wannabes. It’s a hand grenade! Shaped like a heart! Laden with symbolism about Important Issues! Like… um…
Anal Cunt
Obviously.