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Star Trek LCARS — Cover

About Star Trek LCARS

LCARS — the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System — is the touchscreen interface Michael Okuda designed for Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. Built from softly-rounded color blocks and sweeping curved "elbow" frames, it reads from a pure-black backlit console: warm orange and tan capsules glowing beside cool violet and blue ones, with thin colored rails and right-aligned numeric tags threading between them.

The system is resolutely flat — no gradients, no bevels, no skeuomorphic chrome. Its identity lives in the geometry: pill-shaped Okudagram buttons, generous black negative space, and the iconic elbow that bends a header bar down into a sidebar in one continuous radius. It is a fictional UI that became one of the most recognizable graphic languages in television.

Learn more about the Star Trek LCARS style

Origin
Los Angeles, California (Paramount Studios)
Era
1987 onward (TNG era); within the 1950–1990 design window
Key figures
Michael Okuda · Denise Okuda · Rick Sternbach
Movements
Television production design · speculative interface design · flat color-block graphic systems

Star Trek LCARS design spec

Colors

Background
Surface
Primary
Secondary
Accent
Text

Typography

AntonioHeadings
OswaldBody
JuraMono
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