Ladies and gentlemen, the Resistant Grays

It’s better to burn out than it is to rust. — Neil Young

The Rolling Stones gave us typographical insight into where they are today, decades ago. Before the nervous speed-scrawl of their name on the cover of Exile on Main Street, before the down-market street-vendor flash of their name on Some Girls, before more recent years when the font didn’t seem to matter, the Stones affixed their name to a classic — Beggars Banquet — in a typestyle befitting an older, more elegant, more classical era and identity. It was no accident; they used the same script font on stationery sent to commission the tongue-and-lips logo that shorthands the band for the world to this day.

The firebrands who once railed at the servants of the ruling class have morphed into pillars of society, employers of numerous servants of their own. The Stones, one of the most British of institutions, needed the blues, that most American music, for its initial inspiration, its enduring history, and much of its emotional currency. ...

Read the full piece at The Omnibus (Medium)

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Image credit: Stones stamp: Copyright 2022 Royal Mail Group Ltd.