I idolize Michael Okuda.
Many readers will go “who is Michael Okuda?” and that’s a natural reaction. Okuda is kind of like a geek “secret password” – if you know who Mike is you’re allowed admission into the secret society of geekery (“Come in, the cheetos, mountain dew, and Star Trek DVD season sets are right this way”).
Okuda was – and is – a graphic designer who also is a custodian of the Star Trek legacy for Paramount. Mike was the creator of the LCARS design library that was used for all the screens in Star Trek: The Next Generation (and he designed almost all of them, on his old Macintosh computer). And, in a great example of life imitating art, he has also designed logos, emblems and patches for NASA, many of which have seen action in space.
I met Mike many many years ago, before I was an established designer, and I thanked him for his work. “You’re the reason I became a designer” I told him, and he was flattered… And now that I am a user experience designer, creating interfaces that people use in their everyday life, I have even a greater appreciation for the work he put into the designs he did for Star Trek (sometime I even throw an LCARS-like design element on a screen, as an homage that only Trek fans would note).
Thankfully, Mike (and his wife Denise) is still working, still doing cool stuff (he was a producer on the recently completed remastering of the original Trek series). His website has some great examples of his design work, and he is a great guy. If you ever have a chance to meet him, take advantage of it. And tell him Joe sent ya.