“The Kelvin timeline films of “Star Trek” have ensured that the Starship Enterprise — in its various forms — has left a significant mark on popular culture, owing to its distinctive design. Since 1966, this ship, which resembles a large dinner plate with two bent coat hangers protruding from it, has journeyed across the cosmos. However, there was a period when the Enterprise appeared quite different, as its designer attempted to break away from conventional spaceship aesthetics, only to eventually become ensnared in that same design convention.
The responsibility of launching the Enterprise from its initial stage fell to the art director of the show, Walter Matthew “Matt” Jefferies, who had to adhere to several guidelines set by Gene Roddenberry, the visionary behind “Star Trek.” The primary directive was to ensure that the ship did not resemble a flying saucer.
In a 2000 interview with Star Trek: The Magazine (as referenced by Starship Concept Art), Jefferies recounted the challenges of realizing the most cherished ship in all of Starfleet. “He had stipulated that there should be no fins, no wings, no smoke trails, no flames, no rockets.” Following this, Jefferies remembered generating numerous designs from which Roddenberry would select his preferred elements. “Gene favored a fragment of this and a fragment of that and a fragment of something else, so I aimed to figure out how I could combine those fragments.”