NASA Logo Evolution - Going old school

Overview and History

NASA or The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the carrier of innumerable celestial and fantastical dreams. With nearly every kid dreaming to become an astronaut in NASA, it is actually a US government organisation with a self-proclaimed mission statement, “pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

NASA was established in 1958 and was built upon NACA or National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The primary motive of the organisation was civil aerospace research and development. The reorganization of the agency led to a change in the logo for which a contest was held. James Modarelli, an illustrator won the contest and designed the initial logo for the organisation. Since then, the logo of NASA has incurred a variety of changes resulting in an interesting and iterative logo evolution journey.

Logo Evolution

The first logo created for NASA by Modarelli in 1958 was quite conventional for its time, with a simple illustration portraying planets, space and stars encompassed inside a circular seal. The colours used were: a deep rich shade of blue to depict space, yellow for the planet, white to indicate stars and red to show a line depiction of swiftness.

Though the initial logo created was quite appropriate, it failed to showcase the aspirations and future plans of the company in a more simplified manner. Hence, Modarelli was asked to revise the prior design. After the redesign, the resulting logo which came to be known as ‘insignia’ or ‘meatball’ was more modern, simple and impressive. The full name of the organisation was abbreviated to ‘NASA’ and some elements of the initial logo were maintained such as the stars, red rocket trace, colour scheme etc. The outer seal was entirely eliminated.

The novel design was carefully created with a literal and deeper meaning for each element. The sphere represented a planet, the stars represented space, the red wing represented aeronautics and the curved white line showed an orbiting spacecraft. On a slightly metaphorical note, the red stripe could portray the zest to explore the unknown while the stars could symbolize constant movement and the blue sphere containing all the elements could signify stability and balance.

The colours used in the logo which are red, blue and white along with the stars can easily allude to the visual language of the American flag. This could propagate the idea of NASA being in unity with the country and not working in isolation or against the nation. Furthermore, the logo employed the use of a bold serif typeface which made the lettermark vividly shine through.

The logo persisted until 1975 when another redesign occurred. Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn were hired to conceptualise a new logo which ended up being extremely minimalistic and modern and was named as the ‘worm’. The new logo, stripped off of the illustrative elements was nowhere similar to its previous counterpart. What bloomed was a wildly modern lettermark in a bold red hue which was met with immense resistance. The interpretation was so minimalistic that even the cross section of the letter ‘A’ was withdrawn.

Current Logo

In 1992, the ‘worm’ logo of NASA was scrapped off to bring back the earlier ‘meatball’ version. There could be various reasons for the reinstatement, one of them being that the ‘worm’ logo seemed too modern for its time. The new version could perhaps not enclose the abundance of feelings and expectations associated with the organisation. Another reason ascertained for bringing back the ‘meatball’ version was to instil the workers with a sense of nostalgia.

NASA also releases varied versions of the logo on different occasions. One such version was released in 2018 on NASA’s 60th anniversary wherein the lettermark on top of the planet symbolised NASA building on its past to rise further in the future.

Though the commonly used logo for NASA is the ‘meatball’ version, it is highly debatable that the retro visual can envelop the highly revolutionary and magnificent ideologies behind the company. On the other hand, the ‘worm’ logo could also be deemed as being too simplistic to showcase what the organisation stands for. Nonetheless, the striking lettermark does transmit a futuristic aura with its curved lettering and eccentric typeface. Both versions, though glorious in their own unique ways, somehow stand short to represent the magnitude of the organisation. Perhaps, coalescing the two or coming up with an entirely new logo could be the right move for the organisation in the future.