NASA
Europa Clipper
Brand Strategy
Visual Identity
Branding NASA’s Mission to Jupiter’s Icy Moon
Europa Clipper takes NASA to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, to investigate its potential to harbor life. As a team, we developed the mission’s visual identity, crafting a design that reflects the mission’s scientific objectives while honoring NASA’s legacy of exploration.
The mission identifier draws inspiration from the spacecraft’s graceful trajectory as it approaches Europa. The sweeping, angular curves represent the orbital path the spacecraft will take, swooping around Jupiter and flying close to Europa’s surface. These curves also subtly reference the iconic “A” from the NASA logotype. Together, they form an ice crystal—a nod to Europa’s frozen surface and its hidden ocean. Within the design, the star represents the spacecraft, while the central circle symbolizes Europa itself, visually tying together the mission’s core elements.
Collaborators
Logo:
Tobias van Schneider
Key Art:
Bradley G Munkowitz
& Toros Kose
We additionally developed a series of key visuals that spotlight the spacecraft, Jupiter, and Europa to that help support the story of the of the mission. A first set featured cinematic, low-angle perspectives that evoke the sweeping arcs of Clipper’s flybys while a second design-driven direction explored a more graphic approach.
Together, the mission identifier and key visuals form a cohesive visual system applied across spacecraft markings, patches, outreach materials, and digital platforms.
I also had the opportunity to design a portion of the Vault Plate, an artwork accompanying the mission. This plate features a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, soundwave engravings of the word ‘water’ in 104 languages, and over 2 million names as a ‘message in a bottle’ traveling to space.
