Star Wars logo, prerelease version
Contributed by Stephen Coles
on May 31st, 2013. Artwork published in
.
When most of us think about the typography of Star Wars, we think of the iconic ligatured logo lettered by Suzy Rice or the ITC Serif Gothic used for advertising Episode IV in 1977 or Episode VII in 2014. But before any of these was a logo that never made it past some letterhead and a few teaser posters.
Alex Jay, via the Star Wars Scrapbook, credits this Star Wars prerelease logo to Joe Johnston. (Pete Vilmur credits Ralph McQuarrie, though he is more often known for his illustration work for the franchise.) The typeface is the very unusual Precis, designed in the early 1970s by Arthur L. Rawn, a guy that Mark Simonson notes isn’t credited to any other type designs.
2 Comments on “Star Wars logo, prerelease version”
I love the Star Wars logo
I’ve always read that Joe Johnston was responsible for this one, however Lucasfilm and the California Locos both claim John Van Hamersveld as having made the wordmark.