Sticky Fingers - Artwork

Artwork

The album's artwork emphasizes the suggestive innuendo of the Sticky Fingers title, showing a close-up of a jeans-clad male crotch; the cover of the original (vinyl) release featured a working zipper and mock belt buckle that opened to reveal cotton briefs. The vinyl release displayed the band's name and album title along the image of the belt; behind the zipper the white briefs were seemingly rubber stamped in gold with the name of American pop artist Andy Warhol, below which read "THIS PHOTOGRAPH MAY NOT BE--ETC." While the artwork was conceived by Warhol, photography was by Billy Name and design by Craig Braun.

The cover photo of a male model's crotch clad in tight blue jeans was assumed by many fans to be an image of Mick Jagger, but the people actually involved at the time of the photo shoot claim that Warhol had several different men photographed (Jagger was not among them) and never revealed which shots he used. Among the candidates, Jed Johnson, Warhol's lover at the time, denied it was his likeness, although his twin brother Jay is a possibility. Those closest to the shoot, and subsequent design, name Factory artist and designer Corey Tippin as the likeliest candidate. After retailers complained that the zipper was causing damage to the vinyl (from stacked shipments of the record), the zipper was "unzipped" slightly to the middle of the record, where damage would be minimized.

The album features the first usage of the band's "tongue & lips" logo, which was originally designed by Ernie Cefalu. Although Ernie's version was used for much of the merchandising and was the design originally shown to the band by Craig Braun, the design used for the album was illustrated by John Pasche.

In 2003, the TV network VH1 named Sticky Fingers the "No. 1 Greatest Album Cover" of all time.