The Spanish design group Tata & Friends created a set of 24 minimalist posters illustrating rock band names literally. The series is called Rock Band Icons. You may laugh, then you’ll get a strange feeling that maybe laughing at band names makes you an old geezer. It shouldn’t.
On a more philosophical note, Rock Band Icons are a friendly reminder of how odd it is to sling around phrases such as "Sex Pistols" (it's easy to forget how saucy the name is) or "Blind Melon" (how random is that?). Tacking up a Tata & Friends poster may just stoke some serious conversation about the history of rock and where bands got their names from. It's no accident, for instance, that the Stones took their name from a track on a Muddy Waters LP--the blues band inspired them and some of the most legendary rock music of the 20th century.
Now let's just see if the power of graphic design can explain the poetic etymology of Butthole Surfers.
The posters should go on sale soon, but meanwhile you can see them in a slide show at Fast Company. Make it more fun for yourself by trying to guess the name without looking at the text. -via Lauren Hansen