When Star Trek first became a global sensation, Toru Kanamori landed a gig illustrating Japanese translations of the original series stories. Wouldn’t it be great to reprint a bunch of these in an art book with text from the Blish novels?
You know, I’d love to design something like that. Somebody call me.
For more about the work of Toru Kanamori, jump here.
The Enterprise by Ken Adam
Somewhere in the limbo that was the 1970s was a never-completed UK-produced film Star Trek: Planet of the Titans.
They made it as far as the conceptual illustrations. Ken Adam was hired as production designer and Star Wars visionary Ralph McQuarrie set about redesigning the Enterprise.
Article here. More McQuarrie art here.
Enterprise interior
Enterprise shuttlebay
Sir Ken Adam was the production designer for the Bond films.
He also developed the forced perspective look of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (his War Room made a retro/1960s/1980s appearance in Watchmen). Many of the recent Bond films still reference his work.
The War Room from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1963
Peter Lorenz’s Illustrated 007: The Art of James Bond blog looks at all forms of artist interpretations of the British secret agent. Including these great pulp renderings.
Click on the images for the related posts.
Author James Blish turned the original episodes of Star Trek into short stories, which have been printed and reprinted by Bantam Books.
The original cover paintings (above) were top notch. Lou Feck’s incredible brush strokes and fanciful landscapes took Star Trek beyond the confines of a television SFX budget (he did #s 4, 7 and 8). Eddie Jones made a blasted Klingon engine look really cool on #10 (Jones did the later numbers in the series, under the pen name S. Fantoni).
And the type: Helvetica Condensed and some ultra bold numbers (you know, like one of my fonts).
Cool design for explorers on the edge of space. Here’s Modern Fred’s Flickr/photoset of the bunch. And while you’re out exploring, check out Fred’s other space age modern snaps.
The U.S.S. Kelvin, 2009
J.J. Abrams made a few changes to Star Trek.
Plotwise it had something to do with a black hole or alternate reality time travel singularity cinnamon gumball something or other. Below is what Abrams’ U.S.S. Kelvin would have looked like if it fit the style created by Star Trek’s original designer, Matt Jefferies.
Renderings by Kenneth Thomson Jr.
Star Trek’s 1960s production design is a reflection of its era. Cold War, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit – or Mad Men – in outer space.
Jefferies’ original Enterprise model sported antennas on the engines, a radar dish up front with deliberate nods to the military. I think that triangle thing under the forward hull may be for an anchor. Maybe.
The ships from the original series also sported traditional ‘painted’ surfaces – battleship gray hull – plus, identification tags, banners and typography. Port and starboard navigation lights. Just like the Navy. [Read more →]
Here is the US Interstate highway system drawn in the style of H.C. Beck’s London Underground map.
More info (and links to other Interstate maps) here. Super large size here (Yahoo/Flickr account required to view).
Illustrated by Cameron Booth.
Found via Coudal Partners
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