B
Lore

Brands

Various advertisement billboards in the 66th Store building.

ContentsHide
  1. 1Summary
  2. 2Items
  3. 3Gallery
  4. 4Trivia
  5. 5References

There are many commercial brands advertising their products and services on the streets of the Cursed Apple. Here’s a list of them and their possible real world inspirations.

Summary

  • Afterlife Credit House
  • Astral Plane Canned Mille-Pattes Dazzle
  • Baroness Hotel – Baroness Hotel in Seattle, WA (close to Valve’s office in Bellevue)
  • Black Altar Inc. Coffin Polish
  • Black Cauldron Brand
  • Blackwell & Weston Detective Bureau
  • Bradley’s Tonics and Salves
  • Carpenter Brand Sparkling Brut – French musician Carpenter Brut (named after American filmmaker John Carpenter)
  • Classic Blue Paint Service
  • C. M. Burns & Ashe Cremations – Charles Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons, also a pun on "see them burn"
  • Crowley’s Convenience – Aleister Crowley
  • Dr. Rockwell’s Dental Offcie (sic) – American artist Norman Rockwell
  • Filtered Nationals
  • Five Eyes from Concentrate Meats and Crab 5 Eyes – Five Guys Burgers and Fries
  • Fogwell’s Bioluminescence
  • Friedlander and Koppelman Co. Law and Curse
  • Golden Loops Corn Cereal
  • Granite City Garage – Granite City, IL
  • Grebb
  • Happy Panda Coffee
  • Hellmans Steel and Iron Works
  • Hex Jazz Records
  • Holy Chains
  • H. West Reanimation Professionals – H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West-Reanimator
  • Liberty Beef Franks
  • Life Beer
  • Macksound and Hoff Importers of Occultic Goods
  • McMahon and Co. Purveyor of Fine Products and Altercations – Mann Co. from Team Fortress 2 ("We sell products and get in fights")
  • Mosquito Prince
  • Overlord & Company
  • Plaza Cigarettes
  • Prince-S All Brand Guild Society Revue
  • Red Cross Cola – Coca Cola
  • Red Hand Premium Coffee – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ song Red Right Hand
  • Rn Castevets Twin Omen Cigar – The Castevets family from the movie Rosemary’s Baby
  • Sanctuary Horn Wax
  • Sanguine Laceration
  • Talisman Brand Amulets
  • The 66th Store – The 14th Street Store
  • The New York Oracle – The New York Times
  • Third Eye Supply – Third Eye (spiritual concept)
  • W.E. Kurtz & Sons – Colonel Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now
  • White Crow Bleak Thoughts – In Russian, "White Crow" is an expression similar to "Black Sheep" in English
  • Willeford Pharmaceuticals – American detective fiction author Charles Willeford

Items

Some of the posters are advertising in-game items.

  • Concept art showing various signs

Concept art showing various signs – Various signs and artwork

Various signs and artwork – Various signs

Various signs – Various signs and newspapers

Various signs and newspapers – Various signs

Various signs – Item posters

Item posters – The New York Oracle billboard

The New York Oracle billboard – Unused store signs found in the game files

Unused store signs found in the game files – Neon Prime posters

Neon Prime posters

Trivia

  • Concept artist Evgeniy Evstrastiy designed some of the billboards.[1]
  • Some of the fonts used in poster designs are Hestina, Decotura ICG and American Captain.
  • Happy Panda Coffee replaced a previous poster that read "Sad Panda Coffee – Always Bitter".
  • Astral Plane Canned Mille-Pattes Dazzle used to be called Astral Plane Canned Centipedes in an earlier version of the billboard.
  • There was an old poster that read "Prime Neons sold here", a reference to Neon Prime.

References

  1. ↑ Evgeniy Evstratiy Interview (1:19:00) on YouTube (in Russian)