Holy frak. Google can now buy electricity. It seems we’re entering the age of the megacorporation, those ubiquitous 80’s sci-fi movie tropes that seemed to be behind everything. But before we find ourselves in a world where every facet of our lives is controlled by a giant faceless corporation, lets give these old dusty superconglomerates a shot at their former glory, with a long overdue rebrand and retcon.
Where does one start? Well, why not with another present day corporatocracy such as Walmart. As pointed out by Bill Marsh in an article for the New York Times, they recently redesigned their logo and brand identity, thereby “softening the stern voice of corporate authority to something more like an informal chat.” Yikes.
Omni Consumer Products, from the Robocop franchise, started out making accessories for the iPod. The use of Myriad is a subtle way of better associating themselves to Apple, so as to trick the consumer into thinking they are buying actual Apple products. It must have worked, because in the very near future, after gambling in markets traditionally regarded as non-profit (such as hospitals, prisons, and space exploration) OCP owns half of Detroit Rock City and is hawking such products as a cyborg cop, the controversial ED-209, and the 6000 SUX. I’d buy that for a dollar!
For this particular logo, I merely updated the symbol used in the movie instead of reimagining it. It was pretty effective to begin with, and many years ago, it was the logo that got me interested in logos. Seriously.
WeYu was an ultra-cutesy Web 2.0 cliche created by college roommates Chaz Weyland and Billy “Da KroniK” Yutani which combined social media, photo sharing, OMG-ing, ripping off Twitter, and LOLCats into one confusing mess. But by the 22nd century, WeYu, now decompressed to Weyland-Yutani (from the Alien movies), has diversified into space colonization and exploitation, biomechanical androids, Xenomorph weaponization, and Paul Reiser.
Ahhh Blue Sun, from my favorite sci-fi show Firefly. What started out as a couple of aging hippies making all-natural organic free-trade blue tortilla chips out of the back of their biodiesel VW van totally sold out sometime before the year 2517, man. Their unofficial slogan “Hey man, let’s all just…you know, be cool to each other man” eventually evolved into “Let’s be super evil,” and they developed a pretty cozy relationship with “the Man,” also known as the gorram Anglo-Sino Alliance. Word is they still make a pretty shiny tortilla chip though.
That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll do a few others (Tyrell, Cyberdyne, CHOAM, etc.) in the future. So much evil, so little time!
