Hero Collector is a company after my heart. Really, there are art books, and then there are art books. The latter being what “Star Trek: Designing Starships, DS9 & Beyond” falls into. Turning the pages makes me feel like I am leafing through some impossibly important tome to the fabric of Star Trek.
Okay, hype exaggeration aside, I want to say a big thank you to Hero Collector for sending me a review copy. It’s made for some cosy art reading on my week off, and it’s plenty hard to put down as well!
I am known to many and more as a design nerd, so this is perfect for me. A book that curates the rich history of designing some of Star Trek’s most iconic ships, stations and more? Sign me up. When I was younger, I was always captivated by the design works of great artists like Ralph McQuarrie, Dough Drexler and Mike Okuda. Their work captured the imagination and inspiring young me, and I dare anyone to read through this book and not feel the same. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Star Trek: Designing Starships, DS9 & Beyond, is a glossy collection of concept work, sketches, 3D models, detailed model shots, production shots and bank of the napkin doodles of ships and space stations from DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, along with glorious model shots of the Vulcan Warp Sled from The Motion Picture and the T’Plana-Hath from First Contact. Ben Robinson, Marcs Riley and Mark Wright (those names will be familiar to those who have been reading any of our Hero Collector book reviews!) come together to tell the stories and production history of the icons of Star Trek.
While we have had many many many books that detail the fictional history and operations of ships from trek, we sometimes miss the real history of the and work that goes into recognising the tireless work of so many brilliant designers, modellers and artists that come together to make just one episode of Star Trek. Thankfully this book collects the hard efforts of some brilliant people and preserves a bit of behind the scenes history to make sure that their work is neither underappreciated nor forgotten.
(I know, I’m gushing, but don’t worry. It’s all for good reason.)
The book opens with a series of acknowledgements to the various production crews of Star Trek, as well as concept artists John Eaves, Jum Martin, Rick Sternbach, Andrew Probert, Dough Drexler, and Mark Moore. (John Eaves is a name I’ve been seeing a lot in this book, and for good reason, he’s surpassed even Mike Okuda in the number of live-action Trek productions. To say he’s prolific is an understatement!)
Once you get into the book proper, you get treated to one of my favourite places in the galaxy. Deep Space 9. A wonderful double-page spread of the station fills the book as we go down production history looking at the origins of this iconic station. From its initial concept sketches, working slowly into textureless 3D models, nearly finished concept sketches, and finally, with a wonderful sketch by Ricardo F. Delgado, there’s DS9. It’s not just a collection of images. Oh no. This book is teeming with history, interviews, quips, anecdotes. Talking about the design process from start to finish. Where will the Runabout bays go, what about the phaser turrets? Why does the station have three prongs and main structures? All these ideas and concepts are explored and detailed. And that’s just the exterior of the station! The book does perhaps only briefly touch upon Ops. While it’s mostly talking about features such as the lifts and the viewscreen and the design intention behind them, I would have loved to have seen a little more. Though given that the book’s primary focus is exteriors and model work that might be spoiling us.
DS9 takes up a huge section of the show, and I’m not being biased when I say it’s deserved. It’s 20 pages of detailed images, some of them being wonderfully high resolution, with wonderful clear detail and design. There’s even a physical concept model for DS9, really tying it to its roots of the station being a mix of an airport terminal and an oil rig.
From DS9 we get a look at the Runabouts, which is another feast for the eyes, there’s a lot more going on here in terms of design work, discussing history, ideas thrown around the production department, along with some gorgeous interior art of the Runabout set. This section is perfect for watching the slow-building process as the shape is defined by then-newbie ship designer Jim Martin. You can see how shapes and concepts are refined in each iteration and in some different iterations all coming together to form the Runabouts we know in the series! (There’s even a sneaky design reference to the USS Galileo from TOS’s The Galileo Seven, see if you can spot it!)
Of course, I’ve been talking about all the art in the book, I’ve not been talking about the book itself, and it’s wonderfully presented. It’s slick, with a glossy black dust jacket depicting the title and several in-progress concepts for the show, which is fitting given that this is all about the production of ships and stations!
If you’re someone like me and does peek under the dust jacket, you’ll see underneath a simple black cover with the title, it’s actually a nice look for those who wish to avoid using dust jackets. But either way, the inside is where it really shines, aside from the art, the layout is wonderful. The book itself makes great use of white space and light fonts to really let the artwork and imagery pop on pages and pull you in. What really caps it all off is the wonderful detailing, which wraps everything with this light blue LCARS which acts as a nice bit of title art for introducing each new section, but also as space for additional information on images, as well as noting which section you’re reading on the top right corner. It’s such a small detail but gorgeously put together. As someone who works in the print and design industry, it’s these little details I love to see in work like this, and I can tell whoever worked on putting this together had a lot of fun. Layout design is my bread and butter outside of telling everyone how great Star Trek is, so I love to see my fellow designers in action, and assembling this book is superb! Stephen Scanlan, you’re awesome, I salute you.
I could talk for an age about this book, but I think by that point I’d basically be giving this thing away for free. I seriously encourage anyone interested in the production history, concept art, or even if you’re a fan of the show and want to learn more. Definitely give it a look in, it will inspire and delight. It also really helps shine a light on the effort that went into making one of my favourite TV shows. Some really creative people worked very hard and this book really gives them all the spotlight.
With all that said, I love this book. (Couldn’t you tell?) and I’ll happily recommend it to anyone. Until the next review, live long and prosper!
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I want to, again, say a big thank you to Hero Collector for sending me this advanced preview copy. It was an absolute joy to read through!
