Totally wicked and extremely rare iron-on. I think there were only four transfer designs in total: The egg, the Nostromo, the space jockey, and this one. The Giger-inspired title probably wasn’t recognizable enough at the time—nothing like it appears in the trailer, the theatrical posters, etc.—but it’s unmistakable now.
UPDATE (9/17/14): Jason at Contra Dextra Avenue identified the “Roach” on the transfer as most likely the t-shirt design company Roach Studios—very popular in the ’70s. Check out a vintage ad below.
2 Warps to Neptune 
My bet would be that “Roach” refers to these guys, who’d been advertising themed t-shirts in comic books since at least the late 1960s: http://roach-studios.com/2012/04/roach-vintage-t-shirts-wow-full-color-fantastic/
Nice! Post updated.
As a kid I had a t-shirt that featured this early ALIEN logo on the front and the standard release poster art on the back. It was my favorite shirt I ever had and have searched for years for a picture of me wearing it or just a picture of the shirt anywhere online. I’ve never had much luck, but I just saw the logo again in the MAKING OF ALIEN doc from the Quadrilogy set, frame grabbed the image, and then did a Google search on it which brought me to this blog of the artist: http://www.michaeldoret.com/blog/?p=1264#comment-12127
From the blog: “The title treatment I designed for Ridley Scott’s Alien never made it into the public arena. It had some small promotional uses before it was run over by the Bill Gold Advertising machine and relegated to the back burner. At any rate, this was great fun to have worked on—the more so since I was able to work on it with my friend (the now famous “pop-surrealist”) Todd Schorr. I designed and drew the forms based on the “bio-mechanical” forms I saw in some publicity stills from the production, and Todd painted the absolutely gorgeous finished art. Perhaps we went too far with this piece? I’ll probably never know what really happened.”
Seems the info on Michael Doret’s blog has been changed around on that link I provided, so here’s a link directly to the artwork on his site:
http://www.michaeldoret.com/alien/xpkcekemxypsqq32r8xu1kelrl4pi9
Leif, thanks so much for the comments and the links! I’ve been so curious about this piece, and I’m going to contact Michael and interview him if I can. Very much appreciated.
Hi,
I am so glad that Leif Jonker found this post! He has been on this case for a couple of years now, and I am very grateful to him for finding you. The Alien logo was one of the more interesting projects from very early in my career. But I never really knew how that art was used until Leif started corresponding with me.
I’d be very curious to find out how you came across that decal (or if you just came across an image of one), and if you know if there’s any way I could lay my hands on one, or who to contact about that. I now have a publisher, and I’ve begun writing a book about my 40+ years in design, and would definitely like to feature this story now that I know (more or less) what happened.
By the way, don’t know where Leif got those URLs above, but here are the correct ones:
http://www.michaeldoret.com/logos
http://alphabetsoupblog.com/?p=1264
I saw your comment above, and so if you’d like to do an interview, I’d be more than happy to talk to you.
Hi Michael! Thanks so much for your comment. I have known about your incredible work for some time, but I had no idea you designed the Alien logo until Leif left his comment, so I owe him a debt as well. Such a lovely piece.
I found the t-shirt transfer on eBay, but it is long gone by now. It was released initially by a company called Roach Studios, the biggest t-shirt transfer company at the time. Roach recently started up again under the ownership of one of the founder’s sons. I don’t know if they can help you, but here is the website:
http://roachtshirts.com/
And I would love to talk to you about your career and designs. I will contact you through your website, and my email is 2warpstoneptune@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Kelly