History of the Star Wars logo

Anatomy of a Logo: Star Wars takes a look at the evolution of the iconic logo.

“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.”

Inspired by the typeface, Rice developed a hand-drawn logo that translated well to the poster campaign, and ultimately to the movie itself. “I did have the screen in mind when I drew the logo originally,” explains Rice, who “stacked and squared” the words to better fit the brochure cover. It was an aesthetic choice that has lasted nearly three decades.


MTG Unglued

Big Furry Monster cards

A long time ago, I used to play Magic: The Gathering, circa Fourth Edition, before giving it up in favour of the the Star Wars CCG (I was one of the popular kids in high school). I haven’t followed the game in years, but the Big Furry Monster came through my Tumblr dashboard earlier today and made me grin. The makers of the game released a couple of fun expansions that weren’t tournament legal: Unglued and Unhinged. Shuffle & Cut has images of all the cards if you’re interested.



Holographic messaging

Infographic with Leia describing holographic messaging

Continuing with the life imitating science fiction trend, hologram messaging is close to becoming reality. If you happen to have a Nature subscription, you can probably read more about it.

A University of Arizona team says it has devised a system that can make a holographic display appear in another place and update it in near real-time.

In other news, Princess Leia illustration used as infographic for serious article about scientific research.