A new Kickstarter campaign would help to bring back designers Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn's Graphics Standards Manual, which was released in 1975. The old manual introduced a new logo that came to be known as 'the worm'.

The manual did something which had a greater impact on NASA. It didn't introduce new rocket technology or propose a new material for spacesuits. It introduced a logo and a set of style guidelines that would change the public face of the famous space agency for years to come.

Self-described 'design nerds' Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth through their kickstarter campaign wants to bring back Danne and Blackburn's Graphics Standards Manual and make it available to the public.

It has been told that the original manual, which was released in 1975 and discontinued in 1992, was put out as a looseleaf binder. But Reed and Smyth's reproduction will be a hardcover book.

The manual will be a great interest for hard-core space buffs and lovers of graphic design, rather than a casual read for anyone interested in space exploration generally, they said. It consists of lots of drawings and instructions on how to place things like planes, cars, arm patches and stationery, they added.

The thing that makes it a particularly interesting piece of history is that it unveils that according to a 1992 article about the reissue in Wired, NASA's new administrator, Dan Goldin, switched the agency back to using the previous logo, which was nicknamed 'the meatball'. It is the logo which the agency is presently using.

According to Wired, Goldin made the change to boost morale, as there were plenty of company employees who never quite took to the worm.