In late 1960, Gibson changed the body of the whole Les Paul line, adding an upper symmetrical cutaway and doing away with the maple top. The Standard had been working toward thinner necks, and this new model thinned the neck even more, as well as thinning the body while beveling the sides. Initial prototypes were made with the "Les Paul Model" silkscreen on the headstock, but this was removed from production models and replaced with crown inlays and a plastic Les Paul nameplate positioned between the rhythm pickup and fingerboard. The sunburst cherry color of the Standard was changed to full cherry. A small black pickguard was added to the front.

Les Paul was less than pleased with this new design, and had a falling out with Gibson. He demanded his name be dropped from the guitar in 1961. Because Gibson had an abundance of plastic Les Paul nameplates, these remained on guitars until the end of 1963. Then, the model changed names to the simple "SG Standard" name.

The SG's thinner body left the neck joint weak. Early models were very prone to neck fractures and breaks at the heel. The neck joint area was thickened in 1962, but this problem would continue to plague the SG for years.