Nasa Logo 5

So I did a little research, and found out if I showed any of my previous logo variations to a veteran NASA employee, I'd probably get stabbed Here's why:

One of the things I didn't realize is the red "swoosh" originated from prototype designs for a supersonic airplane wing. This was back when NASA was still "NACA" (National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics), so there's a lot of history in that red mark - particularly in the shape, as it directly resembles the the downturned, cambered shape of the wing prototype. NASA employees take a lot of pride in their history, which is why my earlier designs, which played around with the red shape, would probably have been dismissed entirely on that point alone.

The other interesting tidbit I learned is that between the research centers, Lewis, Ames, and Langley, none of them were particularly fond of following the rules, and doubly so in regards to using the "worm" logo on their equipment during the 70s-90s. They hated it, oftentimes, trying to fit the original "meatball" logo in wherever they could. Based on historical feedback...references to the worm logo would be insta-canned.

For this variation, I kept to the serif style, while cleaning it up so as not to look so "stenciled" as the original font appeared. The colors, as I've been using for the majority of the variations, are tied into the US Government's web standards style guide's recommended palette. I could've stuck to the original Pantone colors (Pantone 185 and 286 I believe), but these colors were a little more "punchier," and made the logo pop just a little more.

My main goal was to eliminate a lot of the visual clutter you see in the official logo, and to do that, I removed the stars and added a gradiated, striped globe in the background - a throwback to the very early NASA logo which used to contain a background planet. I also took the orbital ring, and moved it to around the logo itself, so it wasn't another element obscuring the NASA text. As a last touch, I added a little noise to the gradiated striped globe to add a little texture to the look, and avoid it coming off "flat."

This Dribbble is part of a challenge for myself, to see how many variations of a theme (in this case, NASA's logo) I can come up with.