Movies - TV
The Iconic Star Wars Logo Was Redesigned In Less Than 24 Hours
By VALERIE ETTENHOFER
The blocky, yellow-outlined “Star Wars” logo has adorned the many T-shirts, posters, and toys that have come out of the franchise over the past four decades. At the Star Wars Celebration convention, Joe Johnston, the logo designer who is credited as an effects illustrator and designer on the 1997 film, revealed that he created the logo under an overnight deadline.
Johnston explained how one night, producer Gary Kurtz came to him with the initial logo design that “was on one line and it was very thin, hairline letters with pointed ends on the W and everything.” Kurtz was in a panic as they had filmed the iconic scrolling opening but needed the film’s logo at the end, so he asked Johnston if he could fix it by the next morning.
Johnston told Kurtz that he would have to redesign the whole thing, so Kurtz gave him until 10 a.m. the next morning. The designer stacked the words on top of each other with a black-inked “ruling pen and a ruler,” resulting in the now-iconic logo for which he has never received any royalties. He joked, “If I only had one penny for every time that thing's been printed. I don't think I would be here right now!"