NASA has had a few logos in its time: the worm from 1974 -- 1992, and the meatball before and after. The worm was the product of a high end design shop which also produced a 90 page manual outlining its use on all things NASA -- that design manual is being reprinted as part of a kickstarter project.
Inside the Rise and Fall of NASA's Beloved Worm Logo:
"I used manuals just like this—it's what I learned from," Reed says. "They're still so relevant even though they were designed 40 years ago." ... Throughout its 40-year lifespan, the NASA manual has become a cherished piece of graphic design history, both for the quality of the work and for the dramatic lore surrounding it.
[...] While considered a victory for graphic design, many of NASA's employees hated it. ... NASA's first logo ... was a mess by graphic design standards, hard to reproduce, difficult to scale, and, frankly, corny. "I think the meatball has a folksy cuteness, a sort of nostalgic look and feel to it," Smyth says. "But I don't think it's appropriate for a space agency."
[...] Despite its execution and nuance, it seems the worm was doomed to fail. As legend has it, Dan Goldin, NASA's newly appointed administrator, arrived at Langley Research Center one Thursday in May of 1992 and noticed the meatball was still on the hangar. "They never did remove the meatball," Barry, the historian, says. "And they took a very long time to getting around to painting the new logotype on the building." NASA was in a slump at the time, and Goldin saw an opportunity to boost morale. He asked George Abbey, his special assistant, and Paul Holloway, the director of Langley, if he could reinstate the meatball. Yes, they replied, and you should.
And so it was. Like an indecisive lover, NASA dumped the worm and made up with the meatball the very next day. ... This time, it was NASA that loved the logo and the designers who hated it.
There must be a lesson here of some kind for designers. When I look at the worm, I see nothing really -- just letters seemingly optimized for spray paint stencils. The meatball reminds me of Asimov, Star Trek, and all the things in the future of which NASA will be the ancient precursor. You can hear in the video on the Kickstarter, and in the tone of the Wired article, a sort of pouty derision from the designers, but I think it is they who failed to understand their client.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 05 2015, @02:46PM
The worm does NOT appeal to me, at all. It may be "elegant", but it's just to damned simple. Blame it on my military background, maybe.
Some destroyer squadron logos here - https://www.google.com/search?q=us+navy+destroyer+squadron+logo&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB4QsARqFQoTCJjv5NmP4McCFceOkgod2MALww [google.com]
Fighter squadrons - https://www.google.com/search?q=us+navy+fighter+squadron+logo&safe=off&biw=1280&bih=840&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCKabzumQ4McCFQZZkgodmdkAYQ [google.com]
patrol squadrons - https://www.google.com/search?q=us+navy+patrol+squadron+logo&safe=off&biw=1280&bih=840&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCMf60ciQ4McCFU4PkgodR0AP_Q [google.com]
And, let's not forget our brothers in the Corps - https://www.google.com/search?q=us+marine+logo&safe=off&biw=1280&bih=840&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCI2f_4qR4McCFYhWkgodLw8O3w [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 05 2015, @02:50PM
OMG! I point to pics from the Navy, and I didn't include the Seabees? Let me get this quick, before my dad climbs out of the grave to kick my ass!
https://www.google.com/search?q=us+navy+seabee+squadron+logo&safe=off&sa=X&biw=1280&bih=840&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0CB4QsARqFQoTCInmoPKR4McCFYIJkgodyU4JMQ [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:07AM
If he was a Seabee, he could climb out and kick your ass. The Seabees that had to set up in hot zones had to be tough SOBs.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Saturday September 05 2015, @07:20PM
That's all well and good, but those are used in rather different situations than the NASA logo. Astronauts have their own mission patches [google.com], worn on the uniform the same way military unit patches are.
Military aircraft generally try to avoid being seen, so they don't have the same requirements for a logo as NASA does, but the closest thing I can think of would be USAF roundel [wikipedia.org]. You will note that, while it lacks any actual text, it has similar low-detail, high-contrast design to the worm logo. The meatball logo did clearly draw its general shape from the USAF roundel, but it failed by relying on fine details, rather than large, highly-visible blocks.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Gravis on Sunday September 06 2015, @01:06AM
The worm does NOT appeal to me, at all. It may be "elegant", but it's just to damned simple. Blame it on my military background, maybe.
finally, your myopic and oversimplified point of view of topics make a lot of sense. it's unfortunate but our military really has perfected how to breakdown and remold the minds of dullards like you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:11AM
Kumbaya my Lord. Kumbaya.
Let's do away with the military because you can't hug with nuclear arms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:02PM
That's why they like it. It says, "This is what we're about." But the current logo doesn't have the sleek, in-motion look that is generally favored for logos, especially those associated with technology. That's the one thing the worm had going for it.
By comparison, here are the logos created by Paul Rand [stocklogos.com], including IBM, ABC, Ford, UPS, Westinghouse, and NeXT. There is minimalism but there's also balance.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 05 2015, @09:35PM
The 1966 Ford logo design in that link looks sleek, but also looks like a person bent over and taking it from both ends. [stocklogos.com]
No wonder why it went "unused."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:35PM
Block letters with rather low aspect ratio (2:1 or less), still no crossbar for the A's, but spread apart unlike in the worm. The effect would be something like the logo for the first Alien movie.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gman003 on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:42PM
Where do you, a member of the general public, see the NASA logo most often? On vehicles. Generally very big ones, given the nature of the business, but on many spacecraft, flat space to put a logo is at a premium (on stacked rockets, the vehicle is far taller than wide; on winged landers, the wings are very short and stubby).
The meatball logo is not optimized for high-visibility, large-scale use. It works fine on research papers, but it's not good for being emblazoned on spacecraft. It has too many fine details, and the proportion of space devoted to the name is rather low. Look at worm-logo versus meatball-logo Space Shuttles [wikimedia.org] - to fit the meatball on the wing legibly, they had to remove the additional "USA" text (which admittedly was unnecessary but it shows how much more space-efficient the worm logo was). And it's still at about half the font size.
The worm logo wasn't perfect. It was a bit overly minimalist - it doesn't signify "space" in particular. But it was a lot better-designed for its specific purpose than the meatball logo was, and if I were to redesign NASA's logo, I'd start from the worm, not the meatball.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:54PM
I guess we disagree. I like the meatball styles better.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VortexCortex on Sunday September 06 2015, @01:54AM
Well, if you look closely at that image you linked, the only one with the worm logo blew up.
I rest my case.
(Score: 1) by DutchUncle on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:02AM
The "N" like a child's scrawl, with curves that make it much too wide; the A and S connected in a way that they would never be in print or handwriting, while the other letter separations are maintained; the As missing any hint of a crossbar.
It's not just simplified for clarity or recognition, it's dumbed down, and in multiple ways. Just separate the A and S (plus complete the bottom of the S, which requires moving the SA over to the right a little), and it looks better. Fix the N and it looks better yet.
The original roundel, with text around the outside, was typical of the style at the time. Of course it looks dated today - it IS dated, and the newer roundel is a more modern version. But the worm was an attempt to be ultra-futuristic that fails because text would never go that way. Acronym with no periods, fine; but sloppy penmanship? The designers were simply wrong about what people wanted.