Jurassic Park;  How was the famous movie logo created?

Jurassic Park; How was the famous movie logo created?

It’s been 30 years since the Jurassic Park saga hit the screens. From legendary casting to revolutionary special effects to his anthology scenes, Steven Spielberg’s stage debuts have become significant in film history.

The franchise has been very, very much turned into a box office machine, in fact, from the first installment, with the inevitable avalanche of spinoffs; From stuffed animals to video games, including apparel, all kinds of partnerships like Mc Donald’s, which has been showing off Dino Size hamburgers for a while now.

But if the absolute success of the saga is no longer in doubt, it is also due to the logo of the film, which is recognizable to thousands of people and has entered widely into popular culture; A nickname loved by fans Logosaurus. Take this skeleton figure of the T-Rex, the dinosaur of the movie.

The logo quickly became so distinctive and famous that the sequels (which focused on a different island, Isla Sorna, which was not a theme park location and therefore had no logos) created new logos that were used on posters and other promotional materials. There are also video games for which unique logos have been specially created.

From the book cover to the movie

But what about creating the famous logo for the first movie? To find out, you have to go back to the release of Spielberg’s film. In 1990, Michael Crichton published a novel Jurassic Park. By mutual agreement with his publisher, he does not want to feature a fleshy dinosaur on the book cover.

Then they called a book cover designer, still a novice, who would later go on to have a very solid career, Chip Kidd. With the restrictions imposed by the author and publisher, he tries several repetitions: close-ups of eyes or skin, details of dinosaur anatomy, footprints… but nothing seems to work, especially since the novelist and the publisher do not want to master the skeleton track.

After that, Chip Kidd got inspiration from the American Museum of Natural History. The latter, the owner of one of the largest collections of fossils in the world, has exhibited since 1915 an unusually nearly complete skeleton of a T-Rex, which stands at a height of 12 m. For 30 years, the American Museum of Natural History will be the only one in the world to have such a specimen.

In an illustration from a souvenir book by museum paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborne, who was the first to discover and identify T. rex in 1902, alongside a drawing of a T-Rex skeleton on display at the museum, Chip Kidd draws a silhouette. pencil and tracing paper before sending it to Crichton and his publisher. Their reaction is extremely enthusiastic.

Chip Kidd and his work.

Dinosaur logo

Steven Spielberg wants something for a movie still in development “That looks good and doesn’t cost too much to turn down”So much so that the logo should be used not only on the film but on all merchandise.

Universal’s head of marketing, Tom Martin, has a lot of pressure on his shoulders, as more than 80 companies have already acquired the rights to this upcoming logo, even before its conception.

Faced with the scale of the task, Tom Martin called in the famous designer, Mike Salisbury, phosphating on the subject. It is a big name in its field. He has worked on the visual world design of over 300 films, including Alien, Apocalypse Now, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Michael Jackson’s famous stage gloves, not to mention the many brands that have sought his services. ; From L’Oréal to Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Hasbro toy brand and more.

An example of a failed logo.

More than 100 logo suggestions will be created; All rejected by Universal. In the end, it would be a concept artist from the film’s team named Sandy Collora who would make the final proposal, based specifically on (and again!) the book of illustrations that inspired Chip Kidd to create the cover. Crichton’s book.

It was Kolora who came up with the idea to make a circle around the logo, as well as to make the title of the film into a rectangle. The Salisbury team finished the creation by adding a jungle effect to the bottom of the logo to emphasize the giant effect of the T-Rex skeleton. Guaranteed and above all completely successful effect.

In 2001, the logo would change for the release of Jurassic Park III. T-Rex will be replaced in its center by an even more dangerous dinosaur; In this case, a spinosaurus. That said, a very nice touch of the original Jurassic Park logo can be seen at the end of the film when the T-Rex goes through the archway:

The Jurassic Park bestiary continues to amaze us!

Source: Allocine

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