“President Donald J. Trump unveiled the official logo for the Space Force on Friday and was instantly jeered and cheered by ‘Star Trek’ fans who say the design boldly goes beyond the line of borrowing,” reports Geoff Boucher for Deadline.
Here are the two logos, side-by-side, as posted by Deadline:
The story adds, “The Commander-in-Chief was an impressionable 20-year-old when Roddenberry’s space-faring sci-fi classic premiered on NBC so it’s possible it left a real mark on him — as it certainly did with NASA types, inventors, and scientists of several generations. But the new Space Force logo stirred an instant backlash that suggests its imagery may cling-on to ‘Tre’motifs too much.”
For example, George Takei – who played Lieutenant Sulu on the original “Star Trek” series – tweeted, “Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this…,” Deadline says.
To read the full Deadline story please click here.
Trump’s new “Space Farce” film will soon
have him playing the role of Darth Vader ….
a perfect fit!
As a professional graphic designer (and mostly as a viewer of the original Star Trek series when it first aired), I’m fairly certain the Starfleet Command insignia shown above did not appear in that series and not likely until at least the first Trek movie… or maybe not even until the 2nd or 3rd Trek series.
Which is not to say there was no influence on the design of the Space Force insignia, but it’s highly unlikely due to any influence the series had on an impressionable 20 year old Trump. More likely on the designer of the SF insignia.
However, something that needs to be pointed out is that the design of much of Star Trek graphic elements (such as the Starfleet Command insignia) were inspired by the designs of existing military/space/NASA insignia, graphic elements, and designs… much the same way that existing military insignia are based on those of the past. Some going back centuries.
I respect Mr. Takei (and especially all the artists/designers of all things Trek), but if you’re going to bring up royalties… perhaps it’s the military that ought to be expecting some.
If you look at the patches from the 60’s up to 2019, you will see that US Air Force patches did have the tendency toward a triangle for the Systems Command and Research and Development Command, though not the same triangle shown. It was there, however, for almost 40 years in the US Air Force Space Command, which this unit is a pre-cursor. Check out Wiki for more info. So, yeah, I can see where Star Trek actually borrowed from the US Airforce back in the late 50’s and early 60’s.