We are excited to announce Denise and Michael Okuda are joining the 2024 sailing! They have worked on every incarnation of Star Trek and have more Star Trek screen credits than anyone except Gene Roddenberry!
Michael Okuda
As the lead graphic designer on Star Trek for many years, Michael Okuda has earned screen credit on more Star Trek productions than anyone except Gene Roddenberry. Michael was responsible for the control panels, computer readouts, alien written languages, and other cool stuff in Star Trek: The Next Generation through Enterprise, on Star Trek movies 4-10, and he recently served as graphic designer on Star Trek: Picard. Other projects include graphics for the Netflix comedy, Space Force, as well as The West Wing, Flight of the Intruder, and The Bourne Legacy. He also did motion graphics for several recent films directed by Clint Eastwood, including Sully and Richard Jewell, and consulted on graphics for the docu-series Greatest Geek Year Ever: 1982, and Pandora, a sci-fi series, both on the CW.
Michael currently serves as a technical advisor on the Apple TV+ space drama, For All Mankind, on which he works with the writers, cast, and directors to help maintain consistency in the show’s technical scenes.
Michael’s life-long fascination with the real space program led him to design the crew patch for the STS-125 space shuttle mission, worn by the astronauts on Space Shuttle Atlantis on the final servicing flight to the Hubble Space Telescope. His NASA work also includes the emblem for NASA’s Flight Operations Division, worn by the astronauts on the shoulder of their flight suits, the project logo for the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, the Planetary Defense Office logo, and the Spaceflight Memorial Patch (with Bill Foster), which hangs on the wall of Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Other space-related work includes designs for the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, The Planetary Society, Space Center Houston, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Michael has been recognized with the Art Directors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as with three primetime Emmy nominations for Best Visual Effects, and NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal. He served as a technical consultant to Star Trek‘s writing staff, wrote the text for Star Trek: Ships of the Line, and with Rick Sternbach is coauthor of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual.
Michael graduated from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa with a bachelor’s degree in communications and is a member of the Art Directors Guild, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Visual Effects Society, and is an affiliate member of the Manned Spaceflight Operations Association, an organization of real-life NASA flight controllers and flight directors. Mike thinks science is the coolest thing ever and he really wants to be the first graphic artist in space.
Denise Okuda
Denise Okuda served as video/computer playback supervisor and graphic artist for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as for four Star Trek movies, where she was responsible for organizing the computer screen image content in the control room sets. Her other credits include pilots for Threshold, Star Patrol!, The Flash, and The Osiris Chronicles. She cowrote the catalog for the Christie’s auction of Star Trek costumes and props in 2006, has helped to curate and been a writer for several Star Trek museum exhibitions, and did promotional work for 20th-Century Fox’s cult classic, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension.
Denise even appeared on screen as an extra in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where she was part of the Enterprise crew assembled on the ship’s recreation deck (if you look VERY carefully, she’s a Vulcan crew member), as well as a background Starfleet officer in a few digitally-remastered effects scenes of the original Star Trek series in 2006.
Denise was an artistic consultant, along with her husband Michael, for CBS Home Entertainment’s remastered version of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were creative producers for new visual effects for the HD remastered version of the original Star Trek series. They have done voice and text commentaries for numerous CBS and Paramount Star Trek DVDs and Blu-ray releases, and even did a comedic in-universe text commentary for the Blu-ray of Galaxy Quest. Denise and Michael wrote several editions of The Star Trek Encyclopedia, (in both print and digital formats), two editions of The Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future, and On Board the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Denise and Michael currently serve as advisors for the Gene Roddenberry Archive project, working to preserve the legacy of Star Trek‘s creator. They were co-producers on The Roddenberry Vault for CBS Home Entertainment, and on the feature-length documentary, Star Trek: Journey to the Silver Screen for Paramount Home Entertainment. They served on the Smithsonian Institution’s special advisory committee on the Starship Enterprise filming model.
Denise currently works as a technical advisor on the Apple TV+ space drama, For All Mankind, on which she works with the writers, cast, and directors to help maintain consistency in the show’s technical scenes. Drawing on her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, Denise has also served as a medical consultant to the writing staff of Star Trek. She is an ardent fan of the National Football League.
Denise is the recipient of the Art Directors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Spectrum Award, presented by the Cal State Los Angeles Eagle Con. She wishes she could live in Yosemite National Park, but actually lives happily in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their dog, Scooter T. Rocketboy.
We are so excited to have the Okuda’s onboard The Un-Conventional Voyage in 2024! Don’t miss out on seeing Denise and Michael on this incredible Trekked-out experience. Book now and claim your spot onboard before it is too late!