Franz Joseph (born Franz Joseph Schnaubelt) (1914–1994) 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. Similar complaints of inaccuracy were made regarding the Technical Manual, but Joseph's own recollections and explanations (at conventions in the years prior to his death in 1994) cite the errors as being the result of the source material he was forced to use: individual frames from the shows themselves. He had no access whatsoever to any of the production notes or diagrams, such as those by Wah Chang, Dick Datin, Walter Matt Jeffries or Irving Feinberg. Joseph did, however, acknowledge the help of some of these individuals in the frontispiece of the Technical Manual.
Unlike the Booklet of General Plans, the Technical Manual has enjoyed several reprints, and when available is still a high-volume seller.
As an unexpected legacy, Franz Joseph's blueprint and book are responsible for beginning the sub-genre revolving around the blueprints and schematics of fictional vehicles and locations from Star Trek.
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