8 Ways to Sunday

A banner ad and my own curiosity led me to the revamped Napster home page yesterday afternoon, where I was amused to find them still copping a rebel attitude after being bent over by Big Music. They’ve got a new business model, a new software release (a shameless iTunes clone), and new corporate sugar daddies. The only things that haven’t changed are the logo and the name.

In the interests of truth in advertising, and to better help Napster promote its new service, I’ve decided to donate my services by providing some rebranding assistance for Napster 2.0…

Disclaimer: The graphics below are parodies of the Napster brand identity. Use of Napster-owned graphic and style elements are protected by the First Amendment and fair use law. 8 Ways to Sunday is in no way associated with Napster or with its parent company Roxio.

And now I proudly present (drumroll please…) a concept piece for the revamped Napster corporate image:

Much better, don’t you think? 50 bonus cool points to the first commenter that can tell me what the barcode spells out.   Hint: it’s in “3 of 9″ barcode format.

If you find this little spoof amusing, please feel free to swipe this graphic to display on your own blog or web site. I only ask that you give credit where credit is due (that is, to me) and include a link back to this entry somewhere close by. Better get it while it’s hot, before the cease-and-dissist letter comes!

I’ve also made a quickie desktop wallpaper so you can spread the word about Huxter™ to your friends and coworkers:

• small (800 x 600)
• medium (1024 x 768)
• large (1280 x 1024)

If these seem popular enough, I may turn out some more. If you come up with your own variations or whole new Huxter™ parody images / stories / press releases (some witty fake screenshots would be nice), let me know and I’ll post or link to them on this blog!