Planet Express is the name of a delivery company from the Futurama animated tv-series. The company, established in 2961, ships packages between the planets. Almost all main characters of the tv-show are a part of the company’s crew.
Futurama is the second brainchild of Simpsons creator Matt Groening (co-created with David Cohen) about the Interplanetary Express delivery crew living in the year 3000. Fulfilling orders, the ship’s crew regularly got into trouble and saved the world. The animated series takes its name from General Motors’ exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The exhibit showcased a vision of New York City of the future.
The 1999 project was the first original animated series about the future and everyday life since “The Jetsons” in the 1960s. Throughout its more than 20-year history, Futurama has reflected humanity’s naive notions of tomorrow.
The Planet Express is Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth’s small business, paying off his ingenious but sometimes highly questionable research and inventions. Farnsworth is a very friendly, flashy, and intelligent inventor who is a strong advocate for education and scientific progress.
Incidentally, Professor Farnsworth got his name from the real-life American inventor Philo Farnsworth, who appeared in the 1939 Futurama exhibit, after which the entire series was named. The real Farnsworth was also known for his ingenuity. He contributed to the development of television, worked on space rocket control systems, studied nuclear fusion, and even developed his own model of a fusion reactor.
The Planet Express visual identity looks pretty professional, despite the fact it is a cartoon fictional organization.
The Planet Express logo is composed of a circle with a double outline, which contains a wordmark, placed around its perimeter. The light blue rocket is flying out of the inner part of the emblem and moving upright.
The dark red color of the emblem’s inner part is balanced by a light blue of the rocket, which has a yellow fire coming out of its tail, reflecting movement and speed.
The Planet Express logo is bright and modern, showing the fictional company’s purpose and functions, it looks cool and memorable.
In some versions, the rocket is drawn in different shades of green — from light to really dark ones. The darker the shade of green is, the brighter the red of the inner circle is used, in order to harmonize and balance the Planet Express badge.
The updated logo is based on the earlier round version with a flying rocket. The rocket is now flying higher and done in solid black with three black lines for the fire. The name was still printed around the border, but now it featured a more strict, sans-serif font with straight cuts. The center now features a solid salmon pink color, while the border is done in a light beige color. A more minimalistic design made the logo more modern and stylish.
The bold uppercase lettering, written around the perimeter of a circular Planet Express badge is set in a handwritten geometric sans-serif typeface, which has something in common with such popular fonts as Tafel Sans, or Humanist 521.
As for the color palette of the Planet Express visual identity, it is based on smooth and delightful shades of yellow and apricot-pink, with solid black elements adding masculinity and strength to the composition.