Farewell Michael Gross, Pratt Alum And Designer Of The ‘Ghostbusters’ Logo

A fond farewell is in order for Michael Curtiss Gross, 70, the director, producer, artist, and graphic designer who is perhaps most well known as art director at National Lampoon and as the designer of the ‘Ghostbusters’ logo. He died on Monday, November 16, after a battle with cancer, at his California home.

Pratt Institute posted the above photo on Instagram as a tribute to Gross, who, they noted, also “organized a group of artists to raise money for cancer care through art.”

Gross’ death comes 31 years after the first ‘Ghostbusters’ movie came out in theaters, and just eight months before a new remake, featuring an all-female cast, hits theaters. He won awards for his magazine covers and crafted posters for the 1968 Summer Olympics, but as The New York Times notes in its obituary for him, it’s the movie logo that has had the most long-term appeal and recognition.

The “Ghostbusters” logo, a blobby white figure bursting from a red universal “No” sign, came about when the film’s producers wanted to print a teaser poster at a time when the studio had not yet secured the rights to the name. Mr. Gross, an art director and associate producer on the film, worked with one of his artists, Brent Boates, to generate an image that would get the idea of the film across without actually using a title.

The ghost soon became one of the most recognizable and most imitated logos in popular culture. Mr. Gross, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph of London this year, said that he knew the image had gained traction when he saw it on the nose of a B-52 bomber at an air show.

“I looked at it and I laughed,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘So when I look out the window and I see the horizon light up with mushroom clouds, I’ll know that over Moscow my logo is dropping a missile.’ ”

Gross was born on October 4, 1945 in Seattle and grew up in Newburgh, NY. He leaves behind a son and daughter, and three grandchildren.