Franz Joseph (artist)
Franz Joseph (born Franz Joseph Schnaubelt) (
1914â€"
1994) was an artist and author loosely associated with the 1960's American television show
Star Trek. Joseph is perhaps best known for his 1973
Star Trek Blueprints (ISBN 0-345-25821-5), to date the only set of blueprints of the original Starship
Enterprise ever officially endorsed by
Paramount Pictures, owners of the licensing rights to all things
Star Trek. In the purest sense, the blueprints are not particularly accurate, as there are dozens of discrepancies between Joseph's plans and the filming miniatures used in the show. Joseph himself has stated that his intention in drawing the plans was to flesh out the ship's design rather than to accurately depict what viewers saw on-screen. Nonetheless, the drawings sparked a wave of fan-designed (that is, unofficial) blueprints of other invented spacecraft intended to fit into the
Star Trek idiom. Although the blueprints were published after the original show's cancellation, portions have been used for on-screen displays in the
Star Trek films and later television series, elevating them to the level of "canon" in some fans' eyes. The
Booklet of General Plans, as the blueprints are perhaps more properly known (the title
"Star Trek Blueprints" appears only on the outer sleeve), is not currently in print.
Joseph is also the author and illustrator of
The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual (ISBN 0-345-34074-4), a book further fleshing out the
Enterprise as well as a handful of spacecraft invented by Joseph. The book contains information about uniforms (complete with sewing patterns), furniture, weapons, devices, protocols, and other minutiae from Joseph's take on the
Star Trek universe. Unlike the
Booklet of General Plans, the
Technical Manual has enjoyed several reprints and is relatively easy to come by.
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Trekplace -
Star Trek fan site featuring interviews with and information about Franz Joseph
