The reviews for the upcoming Star Wars movie are now appearing, ahead of its general release tomorrow. Will it live up to the hype? Is ‘fan service’ a thing, now? Which spelling of cannon should I be using?
But never mind all that now. Let’s go back to the beginning, and take a look at the evolution of the franchise’s logo (though back in 1977, of course, they probably wouldn’t have used that word), with this wonderful collection of images, care of Alex Jay’s typography blog.
Anatomy of a logo: Star Wars
During the film’s pre-production, a decal was produced. … “It was done as a symbol for the film—to go on film cans and letters. George [Lucas] had had one for American Graffiti, and wanted one for Star Wars.”
Lucas referred to the crawl used in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. … Dan Perri designed a logo, with a vanishing point, for the opening crawl, but it was not used. Instead, it appeared in print on posters and advertisements.
Suzy Rice, who had just been hired as an art director, remembers the job well. She recalls that the design directive given by Lucas was that the logo should look “very fascist.”
“I’d been reading a book the night before the meeting with George Lucas,” she says, “a book about German type design and the historical origins of some of the popular typefaces used today—how they developed into what we see and use in the present.” After Lucas described the kind of visual element he was seeking, “I returned to the office and used what I reckoned to be the most ‘fascist’ typeface I could think of: Helvetica Black.”
Suzy Rice’s original logo was tweaked a little by another designer, Joe Johnston. You can see that both versions have accidentally made their way onto this book cover; Rice’s original on the back, Johnston’s on the front. (And Luke and Darth Vader are left-handed now?)
Alex has gathered together a fantastic range of 70s and 80s publicity material, for the movies, books, games, comics, posters, calendars etc etc. You must check it all out.
And when you’ve finished, check out what this strange tale would look like if it took place, not long ago in a galaxy far away, but in a 1980s high school.
Miscellaneous Details 