A facsimile reprint of NASA’s celebrated Graphics Standards Manual, originally developed by designers Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn as part of the agency’s sweeping visual identity program introduced in 1975.

Danne & Blackburn’s system organized NASA’s visual communications around the now-iconic “worm” logotype, establishing detailed standards for typography, color, stationery, publications, signage, vehicles, aircraft, and spacecraft. Extending from the smallest administrative forms to the markings on the Space Shuttle, the manual remains an extraordinary demonstration of how a comprehensive identity system can operate across an enormous and complex organization.

Beyond the enduring fascination of NASA itself, this bilingual edition of the manual offers an unusually comprehensive view of visual identity at work across vastly different formal, technical, and institutional scales. Its instructions were created to guide NASA personnel in producing new materials while maintaining a coherent visual system. The manual is equally compelling as an object: its format, organization, and careful presentation were designed to make a complex set of standards easy to understand and navigate.

After NASA rescinded the program in 1992, the manual gradually acquired cult status among graphic designers. NASA later made a scan publicly available, and in 2015 New York design publishers Standards Manual produced an expanded deluxe reissue that helped introduce Danne & Blackburn’s work to a new generation.

This edition, published by French publisher Éditions Empire, offers a distinctive facsimile treatment of the historic document. Pages from the original manual are reproduced primarily in black, translating the original Pantone colors into grayscale, while a removable five-color PMS swatch and printed color annotations provide references to the original specifications. The large-format publication retains the practical, working-document character of the original binder while presenting the material as a portable softcover book. 

Texts by Richard Danne and Christopher Bonanos

Designed by Syndicat

Published by Editions Empire
Bilingual, in French and English
Third edition, 2020

Softcover, 164 pages, color and b&w, 9.06 × 12.20 inches 

ISBN: 979-1-09-599120-5