Okuda

As the lead graphic designer for Star Trek, Michael Okuda has earned screen credit on more Star Trek productions than anyone except Gene Roddenberry. Michael was responsible for the control panels, computer readouts, alien written languages, and other cool stuff in Star Trek: The Next Generation through Enterprise, and on Star Trek movies 4-10. He provided graphics for The West Wing, as well as computer screen animation for Clint Eastwood’s Sully and The Bourne Legacy.
 
Michael’s fascination with the real space program led him to design the mission patch for the STS-125 space shuttle flight, worn by the astronauts on Space Shuttle Atlantis on the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. His NASA work includes the team emblem for Mission Control (Flight Operations Division), the project logo for the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, and the Spaceflight Memorial Patch (with Bill Foster), which hangs on the wall of Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
 
Michael has been recognized with three primetime Emmy nominations for Best Visual Effects and with NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal. He served as a technical consultant to Star Trek’s writing staff, wrote the text for Star Trek: Ships of the Line, and with Rick Sternbach is co-author of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual.
 
Along with his wife, Denise, Michael wrote newly updated Star Trek Encyclopedia, published by HarperDesign. The two served on the Smithsonian Institution’s special advisory committee on the Starship Enterprise filming model. They were consultants for the remastered version of Star Trek: The Next Generation and were creative producers for new visual effects for the HD remastered version of the original Star Trek series. They have done voice and text commentaries for numerous CBS and Paramount Star Trek DVDs and Blu-ray releases, and even did a comedic in-universe text commentary for the Blu-ray of Galaxy Quest. They wrote The Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future and On Board the U.S.S. Enterprise.
 
One of Michael and Denise’s most recent projects is Star Trek: The Roddenberry Vault, a Blu-ray release from CBS Home Entertainment, on which they served as co-producers. The Roddenberry Vault features 12 episodes of the original Star Trek, along with six all-new in-depth documentaries highlighting snippets of never-before-seen footage of the classic series, rescued from the cutting room floor.
 
Michael graduated from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa with a bachelor’s degree in communications and is a member of the Art Directors Guild, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Visual Effects Society. Mike thinks science is the coolest thing ever and he really wants to be the first graphic artist in space.