Veteran Star Trek artist/designer Doug Drexler has produced another great Star Trek video. This time it is a tribute to the late Matt Jefferies, art director and production designer on the original Star Trek series (who also happened to be the designer of the iconic USS Enterprise). Watch the tribute video below.

Watch Doug Drexler’s tribute to Matt Jefferies

Doug Drexler pays tribute to his Star Trek predecessor, Walter "Matt" Jefferies, Jr. with this 10 minute long video that explores how Jefferies went from aviation illustrator to Hollywood designer.

MATT JEFFERIES AVIATION ILLUSTRATOR 720p R021 from Doug Drexler on Vimeo.

The video was originally made for a panel at Comic Con 2014, but in the end it wasn’t shown. Drexler tells TrekMovie he is considering expanding it, but he has no specific plans as of yet.

Drexler also notes that August 12th Matt’s Birthday, so this week is perfect timing to pay tribute to him.

The Enterprise(s) and the Starship Poster

At the beginning of the video there is a clip of astrophysicist (and host of Cosmos) Neil deGrasse Tyson talking passionately about the USS Enterprise (designed by Jefferies). The video is from Mark Altman’s Starship Smackdown panel from SDCC 2012. The poster Tyson is referring to was one released by our friends at Geek Magazine at the same event (see below). You can sometimes find the poster on Ebay. There was also a 2-page spread version inside Geek Magazine Issue #2 (back-issue available online).



See Jefferies USS Enterprise and other Star Trek and Science-fiction ships compared to scale on Geek Magazine’s 2012 SDCC Poster

Get the book on Jefferies

Much of the info in Drexler’s tribute was based on the book "Beyond the Clouds," written by Matt’s brother Richard. You can pick it up at Amazon.