George Opperman (January 5, 1935 – November 27, 1985) was a

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

who co-founded the design consultancy Gruye-Vogt-Opperman, and later created the original

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...

logo. The Atari symbol was designed by George Opperman in 1972/3. At the time, Opperman was the head of his own design agency, Opperman-Harrington Inc. The Atari logo, later described as a "Fuji" (as in

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

), looks like the letter " A", and was meant to represent the game ''

Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcor ...

'', with "two opposing video game players with the center of the Pong court in the middle." In addition to the Atari logo, Opperman produced art for Atari's

coin-op A currency detector or currency validator is a device that determines whether notes or coins are genuine or counterfeit. These devices are used in a wide range of automated machines, such as retail kiosks, supermarket self checkout machines, ...

cabinets, and backglass artwork for Atari

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

games such as ''Airborne Avenger'' and ''

Superman Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...

''. George Opperman died of lung cancer at age 50 on November 27th, 1985.Interview of Tim Lapetino, author of Art of Atari
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References

External links

george opperman at arcade-history
Video game artists 1935 births 1985 deaths Logo designers {{graphic-designer-stub