Aperture Science, Inc., better known as simply Aperture Science, is a United States-based scientific research corporation appearing in Portal and Portal 2. A morally and ethically bankrupt company, they are the center of the Portal series; the games taking place in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, their headquarters where all of their projects are researched and developed, which serve as the mechanics of the series.
Aperture Fixtures[]
1943–1947[]
Aperture Fixtures is founded around 1943 by business entrepreneur Cave Johnson as a shower curtain developer and manufacturer, with its goal being to innovate and pioneer shower curtain design. This proved to be a success, with Aperture Fixture's high-tech shower curtains finding a market in most branches of the United States Armed Forces as well as the public.
Aperture Science Innovators[]
1947–1973?[]
Stacked logo
Icon
Wordmark
Designer:
Unknown
Typography:
Bebas Neue
Launched:
Unknown
Following its success, the corporation's focus was expanded to pure scientific research and development; a large research facility called the Aperture Science Enrichment Center being constructed in a large Upper Michigan salt mine in 1947 to serve as the headquarters of the newly branded Aperture Science Innovators, where scientific innovation could persist and endure no matter any circumstances.
Of note is that the font used in this rendition of the logo, Bebas Neue, came out in 2010, thus making it anachronistic for the logo's time period of the 1940s to the 1970s.
Aperture Science[]
1973?-1982?[]
Icon
Wordmark
Designer:
Unknown
Typography:
Cooper Black
Launched:
Unknown
The name was formally shortened to Aperture Science in the 1970's, with a rebrand that would give the company a more retro futuristic style using the "Cooper Black" font. During these decades, Aperture became bankrupt due to the high fatality rates among its human test subjects. After losing a senate case on missing astronauts, Aperture's brand was tarnished, leading to the rise of its competitor Black Mesa.
As a result, Aperture could no longer afford high-quality test subjects, and instead began taking homeless people from the streets, offering them $60 to participate in various moral-gray-area tests, such as the replacement of every major organ, development of super-tumors, and testing the Dual Portal Device, which contained an unstable quantum space hole.
1982?-present[]
Icon
Designer:
Unknown
Typography:
Univers Black Oblique ("APERTURE") Univers Next 440 Extended Regular ("LABORATORIES")
Launched:
Unknown
The company was finally rebranded one last time in the 1980s, adopting the trade name Aperture Laboratories that would be incorporated in its main logo alongside a new symbol; that of the symbol commonly used for the aperture setting on cameras. This symbol is the closest to an actual aperture. During this era, Aperture rebranded itself as Aperture Laboratories, and stopped experimenting on the homeless. Instead, it made testing mandatory for all employees, creating a much higher standard of test-subject, at the cost of employee retention. During this era, the CEO of Aperture Cave Johnson became fatally ill due to moon rock poisoning, and began construction on a machine capable of storing a human intelligence.
