NASA Graphics Standards Manual

In 2016, after much backing, a kickstarter campaign started by Pentagram’s Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth was successful in getting funding for a reissue of the NASA Graphics Standards Manual, which was originally published in 1974 by New York design firm Danne & Blackburn. 

The retro futuristic book contains all the old graphics used at NASA, from simple letterheads to graphics on rockets. We really liked the aesthetic of the manual and decided it would be really good visual research for some of the designed materials for archive 41. Of course a slightly more exciting, contemporary aesthetic will have to be sought after for aspects such as the poster, but for things like the catalogues and branding, the basic grid systems, body text typefaces and bold sans serif logo all apply very well. We also decided to pick a couple of colours for the branding and stick to them, we got the swatch colour of the orange 70’s nasa suit and the swatch colour of the grey they use on modern day space suits, which represents the length of time between then and now.