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After raising nearly $1 million from their Kickstarter campaign last October, graphic designers Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth of successfully brought the original 1975 NASA Graphics Standards Manual to thousands of space and design geeks – a piece of exploration history that was previously thought to have been lost.
Designed in 1974 by Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn – of the New York firm Danne & Blackburn – the graphics standard manual includes the famous NASA “Worm” logo and every other graphic used for spacecraft, spacesuits, internal documents and the like.
To reproduce the original manual – which was obtained from Danne after seeking permission to reissue it – Reed and Smyth meticulously scanned every page and cleaned the resulting 1200 dpi scans one-by-one for printing using high-quality CYMK + 5 Pantone spot colors that accurately match the originals as intended by the designers.
“We think this manual and others like it—regardless of the organization—are a beautiful example of rational, systematic design,” explains Reed. “The NASA manual is one of those examples that sets the standard for design excellence—a document well worth preserving for the future as a learning tool, a gorgeous object, and a moment in design history.”
Now, space and design geeks who were late to the Kickstarter campaign can get their copy, too.
Says Reed and Smyth:
“This book is from the same print run as the Kickstarter campaign. It includes every page of the manual printed from 1200 dpi scans of Richard Danne’s personal copy, a foreword by Mr. Danne, and a 6,000+ word essay on the culture of NASA at the time of the manual by Christopher Bonanos (New York magazine, Instant: The Story of Polaroid, “All aboard.” from the 1970 NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual Reissue).”
Additionally, the book also contains the original 35mm slide presentation that Danne and Blackburn presented to NASA in 1974 – a presentation that would change the face of NASA and come to symbolize space exploration for the next two decades.
Pre-orders of the $79 book will ship on May 3, 2016, and can be ordered over at Standards Manual.
Read The 1975 NASA Graphics Standards Manual is Set to Begin Shipping on May 3rd at SolidSmack.
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