Launching NASA’s search for life
Europa’s ocean may harbor the conditions for life. In October 2024, NASA launched its flagship mission Europa Clipper to investigate — could Jupiter’s moon have a world much like our own? I joined the launch effort in Jan 2024 to design a 9-destination U.S. roadshow. From there, I owned visual strategy and brand design across the mission’s nationwide physical activations, socials, campaigns, and other high-visibility touch points.
︎ Active Mission
OBJECTIVE
From science, to story
Faced with scattered legacy visuals and brand inconsistency from over 12 years of project development, our creative team embarked on a challenge to synthesize decades of NASA work into one inspiring story. Shipping the pole banner design (below) was one of many identity-defining moments for the project.
BRAND CHALLENGE
Rebuilding brand for scale
Europa Clipper's existing brand guidelines were designed before applications expanded across education, media, and science communication. Thus, teams defaulted to inconsistent asset use.
My objective was to close that gap, evolving the identity into a system that content, marketing, and science teams could confidently use. I championed new typefaces, a color palette grounded in the mission's scientific character, and design guidelines built for real-world application. The result earned stakeholder buy-in across teams and gave the identity the structural coherence to scale.
Credit: Tobias Van Schneider (logo), GMUNK (renders)
EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
Europa Clipper hits the road
Europa Clipper reached thousands through engaging in-person pop-up activations in 9 U.S. cities. This was our biggest push for visual system coherence. We crafted a modular suite of learning tools that inspired all ages to learn about the mission’s science, legacy, and upcoming 1.8-billion-mile journey.
The result: 40 interactives spanning banners, signage, handouts, worksheets, models, and posters. Partnering with marketing and science experts, we translated science objectives and engineering concepts into dynamic, user-centered learning opportunities.
Over 35,000 attendees learned about NASA’s mission on-site.
See below some images of various activations at the California Academy of Sciences, Woods Hole Oceanographic Insitution, and more.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT & ACCESS
Campaigns that reached the masses
The brand system put on expressive “hats” for a wide range of campaigns.
For example — we utilized more gradient 3D-modeled imagery to deliver an sleek, inspiring, and Webby Award-winning “Message in a Bottle” Campaign. The Waveform Generator enables users to engage with water in 104 different languages. Try it here︎︎︎
The Europa Clipper design system enabled interdisciplinary effort to tell an expansive story of human ingenuity and exploration.
Over the course of 6 months, our work reached global audiences tuning in to NASA+’s live broadcast, social channels, in-person launch events, and on-lab celebrations. Europa Clipper launched in October 2024, and will begin its orbit in 2030.
More Cosmos
Beyond Europa Clipper, I’ve supported other NASA/JPL missions and products to surface their work to the mainstream.
