"We have the kind of stuff AI wishes it could make": Why trust is more important than ever for the NASA brand
(Image credit: NASA/Frontify) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Last week we attended Frontify's Paradigms conference on Obanjan Island in…
(Image credit: NASA/Frontify) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Last week we attended Frontify's Paradigms conference on Obanjan Island in Croatia. The three-night event was host to a plethora of insightful discussions and keynotes by design leaders across the world. But one of the most fascinating talks came not from the creative director not of a design studio, but a federal agency.David Rager, creative director at NASA, talked about his role overseeing the agency's visual brand and iconic Graphics Standards Manual. This has involved reviving the iconic 'worm' logo, which was resurrected to the delight of NASA fans back in 2020.We caught up with David after his talk to discuss his journey to becoming creative director at one of the world's most storied federal agencies, and the challenges of maintaining a brand built on trust in the age of AI.Latest Videos FromCreative BloqWatch full video here: A post shared by David Rager (@regard)How did you end up as Creative Director at NASA?It’s not a very straight line. My beginning in graphic design came through music. I’ve always been in bands, and when I was in college I started making flyers, posters and album covers for my own band and then for friends’ bands. That led to freelance work and agency jobs.I eventually moved to Los Angeles with my band and stumbled into a career in the museum world. From there I moved through agency work, helped open a new museum in New York, and then moved to Paris with my wife, where we also started our own studio doing architecture and design, mostly hospitality and restaurants.Eventually, we came back to LA and I got a job at Disney. We moved into a neighbourhood right behind NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I started discovering all these creative roles within NASA. They were going through a reorganisation and needed a design leader, so I was brought in to manage a team.My boss asked me to build a relationship with NASA Headquarters so the team could take on more brand and design work. They kept buying more of my time until they eventually said, “We need you here full-time.” I started at JPL (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in 2019, and in 2023 I went full-time for Headquarters, after a major project to bring back the NASA 'worm' logotype, which had been dropped in 1992.Source: Creative Bloq AI Art — Published — Category: Image AI