Our latest episode of the On Orbit podcast is all about design. Not spacecraft design, or satellite engineering, but graphic design in the space industry.

Visual and graphic design elements play an important, yet often overlooked role in our community’s ability to communicate. For an industry that basically lives at the cutting edge, the look and feel of it can sometimes be a little stagnant — lots of blacks, blues, and grays. Most people will tell you that this is due to either the strict and rigid requirements and culture of end-users, or the reliance on design contractors who don’t know exactly how space technology works.

That said, the industry is actively trying to change its look to attract new customers to commercial space services. To provide some perspective on this, we invited two space-focused graphic design experts who explain how visual design in the industry is evolving as access to space is expanding.  

Both guests are full-time designers who came to the space industry from the world of fashion design. Our first guest is Erin Bonilla, creative director and co-founder of Harbinger Creative. Erin has been a graphic design expert for NASA for several years and talked to On Orbit host Jeffrey Hill about how the agency has worked to keep its already iconic branding fresh and relevant.  

We are also joined by Jordan Klein, creative director at satellite antenna systems developer NXTCOMM. Jordan talks about the revolution in design that is happening among ground systems companies and explains how to keep product and visual design appealing for one of the most rigid and traditional customer segments – government and military.