NASA launched the retro poster series titled ‘Visions of the Future.’ According to David Delgado, the creative strategist behind the project, “the posters began as a series about exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- to celebrate NASA's study of them.”
The purpose of the posters was to share a sense of what is possible in the near future based on projects that NASA is currently working on today. Developing the posters in a vintage fashion ensured that they represent some uncertainty around the outer planets. This intentional choice allows the imagination to wonder what these exoplanets would be like.
The aim was to create a retro yet futuristic feel with the typography on each of the designs. In each print, you can see alterations to the design and typography based on the nature of how the planet itself is imagined.
The Grand Tour is the route the Voyager 2 spacecraft took to visit all four outer planets. It's actually a flight plan that's possible every 175 years when the outer planets are aligned. The design was inspired from some transparency overlays from the 1960s, again focusing on the retro aspect of the overall project.
The Mars Exploration program seeks to understand whether Mars was, is or can be a habitable world. This poster was created to imagine a future where humans are on Mars, and their history would revere the robotic pioneers that came first.
A few subtle design points to consider in this poster are:
- There’s a silhouette of Olympus Mons in the background,
- There's evidence of some underground water, and
- The rover's wheel is spelling out JPL on the ground in Morse code.
You can see that the colors used to signify the different elements: Water, the terrain, engineering/robotics, growth and life.
Saturn's moon Enceladus is all about the plumes erupting from its south pole. There's no right way up in space, so the surface was turned upside down from the point of view of the visitors in the picture. The cooler colors used represent the colder, gaseous climate that you’d expect on a moon orbiting Saturn.
NASA Visions of the Future is a retro print design in the Aerospace, Education, Technology and Travel industries.
