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NASA’s Worm is Set to Soar Back Into Space—and Into a New Book

May 27, 2020
1 min

NASA’s Worm is Set to Soar Back Into Space—and Into a New Book

If we can set the pandemic aside for a moment, 2020 has been the year of the Worm—earlier this year NASA called its iconic logo back into service, and today it’s slated to head back into space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Also today, the publisher Standards Manual announced a new book, The Worm, featuring more than 300 images of the logo in use. Culled from NASA’s archives and presented in a 248-page volume, “these images demonstrate not only the extent to which Danne & Blackbur

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Apr 15, 2020
2 min

The Inside Story of NASA’s “Worm” Logo

Earlier this month, the design world was delighted when NASA unexpectedly revealed it was bringing back its iconic “worm” logo, which Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn created in 1974. As it happens, Brian Collins had already been planning to invite Danne to speak to his team at COLLINS—and after the announcement he realized more people might be interested in hearing from Danne. So he sent out a newsletter invite for a Zoom gathering and capped the event at 100 … and it fille

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NASA’s Worm Has Returned!

Apr 6, 2020
2 min

NASA’s Worm Has Returned!

It began with a meatball. In the late 1950s, NASA employees were invited to submit logos for their newly formed government outpost. James Modarelli, chief of the Management Services Division and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, gave it a go—and probably didn’t realize he was in fact branding the agency for the next seven (and counting) decades. His concept? As NASA recaps, “The design incorporates references to different aspects of the mission of the National Aer

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I [Heart] Astronauts

Sep 17, 2018
2 min

I [Heart] Astronauts

From 1960 through 1963 I was president of The Astronaut Fan Club. I was also founder and its only member. You might say it was a front for getting as much NASA swag as possible. Don’t get me wrong, the astronauts were my heroes. We lived in the era of heroes and it was for that reason I wanted (and still possess) every iota of paper ephemera I could absorb. My strategy was simple. I typed letters everyday, seven days a week, to each and every NASA employee, Mercury, Gemini an

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My Hero Was a Nazi

Jul 19, 2017
2 min

My Hero Was a Nazi

Like most of my generation, I was obsessed with manned space exploration. Walt Disney was largely responsible. Every month in the 1950s the Wonderful World of Disney treated the American TV audience to the “Man in Space.” My diet was Chinese takeout and Wernher Von Braun. As technical director and host, Disney had cast the German aerospace expert who was a leading figure in the development of rocket technology during World War II. A member of the Nazi party and a commissioned

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Worms & Meatballs: Unearthing NASA’s (Old) New Identity

Oct 2, 2015
2 min

Worms & Meatballs: Unearthing NASA’s (Old) New Identity

I’m not usually one to tout a Kickstarter campaign on my beloved PRINT, but this particular project seemed too perfect an opportunity to pass up. Pentagram designers Hamish Smyth and Jesse Reed started the campaign to reissue a gorgeous hardcover edition of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Graphics Standards Manual. That’s NASA, in case you glossed over the title. Designed by Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn of the New York design firm Danne & Blackburn in 1

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Our Future Prosperity for Half a Penny

Apr 6, 2012
1 min

Our Future Prosperity for Half a Penny

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, is one brilliant spokesman for America’s future. And that future costs only half a penny of every tax dollar. He believes, and says it in this inspiring video, that the U.S. creative and economic growth was, in the 1960s, inextricably linked to the NASA space program. The race to the Moon fostered a need for development in all strata of science, art and industry. Space literally opened our

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Today's Obsession: NASA on the Flickr Commons

Aug 31, 2010
1 min

Today's Obsession: NASA on the Flickr Commons

The Flickr Commons is a curated section of Flickr, launched in association with the Library of Congress in 2008, to collect historical content in one easy-to-find, public place. A lot of this content is donated generously, open for public use. Think of it as the U.S. digital heritage. Most recently, they’ve launched a new section of photos from NASA, featuring piles of historical material. Their sets are organized into three sections: Building NASA, Launch/Takeoff, and NASA C

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