Graphics: LCARS

As I have taken a lot of time to study the graphics used on the star trek series, specifically TNG through Voyager, I've come across many references to Okuda and company utilizing Adobe Illustrator during production of the series. Although I have a copy I thought about all of those people to do not have Illustrator. There are other alternatives that can be just as effective if you are attempting to replicate screen used graphics, or just for creating your own custom ones.

I have Adobe Illustrator in my arsenal, but thought I would try Microsoft Visio. Amazingly it works rather well. You have a lot of control for the shapes although you may have to piece together you LCARS brackets. You have a complete color control which allows for input of custom Pantone colors. Visio also allows for a lot of image importing so that you can freely edit from screen capture to MS Paint and crop in Paint and paste to Visio.

With this being said you do have to watch out for a few issues. For example if you want to print your LCARS print directly out of Visio, or PDF then print. You can select and object and save as an image, but it does tend to come out as a lower resolution image. Save your work once in awhile. I learned the hard way that sometimes Visio 2007 will crash.

Sample of object saved out of Visio as a JPG:

Sample of a Screenshot out of Visio:

Sample of the LCARS brackets in Visio:

LCARS Visio Buttons:

Visio has a number of controls and after you are familiar you can manipulate it to create many of the graphics to match your desired look. If you have Visio and would like to use some of the templates I’ve already created send me a request!