Via Kickstarter.

After the unexpected success of a reproduction of the New York City subway’s design manual, the designers behind that project are taking on another iconic American logo: NASA.

Designers Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth blew through their $108,000 goal and raised more than $800,000 last year to bring the New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual (which they had previously put online) into an elegant book format. The manual had helped bring the chaotic subway into modernity, and more than 6,000 design nerds wanted their own hardcover keepsake of it.

Reed and Smyth next decided to take on the NASA Graphics Standards Manual, and it has already proven similarly popular. In just one day, more than 1,400 people have contributed $145,000 to their Kickstarter campaign—putting them just shy of their $150,000 goal with more than a month to go. There is only one backer reward: $79 for the book.

Although the work is in the public domain, the pair still sought approval from the original design director. Richard Danne, of the small firm Danne & Blackburn that was behind the project in the mid 1970s, gives a firsthand history of the manual in the Kickstarter video. And the designers used scans of the manual from Danne’s personal copy, along with previously unseen materials from his archive, for the book.

NASA rescinded the logo, which was known as “the worm,” after almost two decades of use and returned to the previous circular blue logo, nicknamed “the meatball,” in 1992. It wasn’t a decision that resonated with all graphic designers. Calling the 1975 NASA manual
“one of those examples that sets the standard for design excellence,” Reed and Smyth said:

“We think the Worm and its design system represent an agency whose goal is to explore space and push the boundaries of science. Where the Meatball feels cartoon-like and old fashioned; the worm feels sleek, futuristic, forward-thinking. All good things for a space agency at the bleeding-edge of science and exploration.
We think this manual and others like it—regardless of the organization—are a beautiful example of rational, systematic design. The NASA manual is one of those examples that sets the standard for design excellence—a document well worth preserving for the future as a learning tool, a gorgeous object, and a moment in design history.”

But there is another place where you can still see the worm in action; it remains etched in NASA’s Southwest headquarters.

Photo by Alan Cordova.