Figure 2.5 In this shot, the blue Weylan-Yutani logo is visible in two places on the Nostromo, as well as the logotypes for the name and model of the lifeboat shuttle Narcissus (areas highlighted).

Figure 2.2 Ron Cobb’s “Nostromo A” sketch — one of many concepts handed off to the FX team for actual construction of the models and sets — was selected to inspire the final build. Director Ridley Scott made the decision to lose the yellow paint job. Source: Alien: The Archive

Figure 2.1 Concept art by Ron Cobb, when the ship’s early working name was Leviathan. Here we see more exterior graphics, and what might be a logotype, applied to the exterior. Source: The Book of Alien

Analysis: The Nostromo Exterior

The starship Nostromo is not a thing of beauty, in the sense that it isn’t portrayed as some sleek product of a bright and shiny future. It is a workhorse vehicle with a dirty job to do, where function dictates form, and there definitely wasn’t any Company money wasted on making it pretty from the outside. The majority of its work is done floating solitarily through deep space after all, or in orbit for drops and pickups, so there really isn’t anyone around to impress with good looks until it dry docks for repairs or lands on an inhabited surface for some reason.

But given the early concepts executed by the film’s artists, this wasn’t always guaranteed to be the case. Chris Foss and Ron Cobb covered a lot of ground before Ridley Scott took over as Alien’s director, and their ideas for ship designs varied wildly in shape and color, with many of them featuring some kind of exterior graphics. Even on those produced by Cobb, that would end up being the closest approximations of the final constructed design, we still see color graphics (Figure 2.1) and a yellow painted exterior (Figure 2.2). I assume the yellow was considered for its real-world application on present-day terrestrial vehicles of industrial nature, and it definitely would have given the ship a more branded appearance.

After a pile of sketches was hastily shuffled off to the FX crew and work began, the yellow paint job at least, had initially found its way onto the Nostromo models they built. But seeing that, director Ridley Scott ultimately made the call to strip the exterior down to the gray metal finish that made it into the film (Figure 1.1). Despite the FX crew’s affection for it, the yellow was too garish for Ridley and ran counter to the dark look he was after for Alien.

Through all of this, inspiration from military references were central to the filmmakers’ vision for the Nostromo. As recalled by art director Roger Christianson, Ridley Scott had shown them the film Dr. Strangelove and said, “That’s what I want. Do you see? Not that it’s a B-52 in space, but it’s the military look.” This would come across not just in the Nostromo’s ship design, but in its stencil/stamp branding of company objects and military-styled crew insignia as well.

But I still couldn’t help but wonder, despite the spartan approach to the ship’s exterior, if it was in fact totally devoid of company graphics or ship identifiers of some kind. Even the military tends to slap a number and insignia on vehicles. But it’s tough to tell in the film, since everything is so dark and we don’t get to see all angles of the craft.

In some of the production photos I came across in my research, I found the Nostromo’s name and registration number painted in dark gray, on the side of the engine (Figure 2.3). I believe this was painted over though, as it does not appear to have made it into the actual film.

Carefully examining the ship as it appeared on screen, I did find numbers under the bridge viewport, but they don’t match the registration number (Figure 2.4). So they aren’t related to the craft’s identity — not sure what they would represent.

But in the scene where we see Ripley making her escape in the Narcissus, we definitely see the blue Weylan-Yutani wings logo in two places (Figure 2.5). Just behind the docked shuttle, we see the wings next to the the shuttle’s name “NARCISSUS”. Below those marks, we see the “EI” logo, which represents the shuttle’s model. And in the same shot, to the right of the blue lights marking an airlock, we see the Weylan-Yutani wings stacked vertically between the numbers 56 and 23 (Figure 2.7). As far as I can tell, this is the only branding on the exterior of the ship. Which basically marks it as owned and operated by Weylan-Yutani, and identifies and ties the lifeboat shuttle with the Nostromo.

Given the massive scale of the craft, and the fact that it spends most of its existence in space where very little of its exterior would even be seen, this makes a lot of sense. Probably the only spots that would involve someone out in space getting close enough for seeing a mark that wasn’t ridiculously large scale, with direct visuals of it through a viewport or maybe a camera view, would be docking areas and airlock entries — which justifies the Company logo placements where we see them. Anything beyond that, plastering some giant logo, or multiple logos and graphics all over the craft, would just be a large waste of time and effort.

As big as the craft is, with all of the surface mechanicals, it’s funny to even think how a giant logo or graphics of some kind would realistically be applied. Rather than thinking of a vehicle featuring visual branding, it’s more useful to think of it as a giant building being branded… just put the logo by the entrances and call it good! Actually, supertankers or container ships would be a good reference — being used for commercial purposes and similarly scaled — and these usually have the corporate logo/name on the side, and the craft’s name and/or hull number on the bow (Figure 2.6). But those surfaces are smooth and relatively flat, compared to the craggy surface topography of the Nostromo.

But it does seem a bit odd that the ship’s name and serial number doesn’t appear somewhere, for identification of the craft in the event that it has lost communications or is floating derelict for some reason. That said, I think the filmmakers were smart with their overall design restraint.