NASA Logo History

NASA LOGO DESIGNER HISTORY

   
                The History of the NASA logo has not only stylistic and practical aspects but also includes some humorous anecdotes as well.  The logo was designed as a replacement for the old NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics) logo.  After an illustrator in NASA’s Lewis Research Center created the seal for the organization, the head of that division, James Modarelli, was tasked by NASA to design a logo that was simpler and could be used for less formal purposes.  He did that while adding several elements representative of both the space travel aspect of NASA’s work, and the less glamorous aeronautical purposes of the administration.
                 He simplified the seal, leaving only the white stars and orbital path and setting them upon a perfect blue circle and a red sweeping airfoil.  Then, he added the signature white NASA lettering.  Each part of the logo represents a different aspect of the work that NASA does.  The stars are...stars, representing space.  The white orbit represents the type of maneuvers that   NASA spacecraft would make, especially in the early days of baby stepping with satellites and one man craft in low orbit.  The red chevron is meant to represent a wing, particularly that of the type of hypersonic aircraft. Lastly the blue circle upon which the whole piece is based is representative of a planetary body.

             As a logo,, it stayed in use until 1975, when NASA leadership decided to create a more stylized logo for modern times.  Nicknamed the "worm", this new logo incorporated wiggling letter forms and nothing else to create a simpler logo. The former logo was the derisively nicknamed the "meatball" after the food and an aircraft landing method using a "meatball" of light reflected off a mirror.  Eventually in 1992, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin brought the meatball out of retirement as the main emblem of the organization.
             It should be noted that when the emblem was originally created when photocopying was entirely a photographic process. In the age of digital copying and designing the meatball is vary difficult to copy and EXTREMELY difficult to re-size.  Even the NASA graphic department employees view this logo as a "design nightmare"