The art of being a subtle geek

The New York Times magazine ran a one-page article yesterday about a British designer who has a website called "Last Exit To Nowhere" that sells t-shirt designs with various and sundry logos on them. But what this limey cat has done is create or use logos from sci-fi, horror and genre films of the past, so that you can get a shirt with the Camp Crystal Lake logo from the "Friday the 13th" films, or a nicely touristy-looking shirt from Amity Island, the town besieged by the marauding shark in "Jaws." Others in the series include:

America Research Station Outpost #31 (from John Carpenter's "The Thing")

Polymer Records (the fictional record label of "Spinal tap")

The Hotel Earle (from the Coen Brother's "Barton Fink")

USCSS Nostromo ( the giant freighter/spaceship from 'Alien")

There's many more, and you can check out the entire line here.

I was unable to resist and bought a couple myself. my selections were:

"Brodsky & Branom Ludovico Technique": the company that perfected the behavior-modification regiment used on Mr. Alexander DeLarge in "A Clockwork Orange." Awesome.


"The Tyrell Corporation": The giant monolithic enterprise in "Blade Runner" that created the replicants, including the new Nexus-6 line. This was the actual logo and "more human than human" slogan used in the movie as well. Note the owl image in the logo, and remember that when Deckard first arrives at the company headquarters early in the movie to interview Rachael, a large owl swoops by. The following exchange then takes place:

Rachael: Do you like our owl?

Deckard: It's artificial?

Rachael: Of course it is.

Deckard: Must be expensive.

Rachael: Very.

One suggestion, British-designer dude: how about a t-shirt for the Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania? For the uninitiated out there, that's the mall where the four people in 1978's "Dawn of the Dead" were holed up.