Matt Jefferies
American artist (1921–2003)
Walter Matthew Jefferies (August 12, 1921 – July 21, 2003) was an American aviation and mechanical artist, set designer, and writer. He is best known for his work on the original Star Trek television series, where he designed many of the sets and props, including the original Starship Enterprise, including its bridge and sickbay.
Early life
Jefferies was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He had three brothers, John, Richard and Philip, the latter two of whom would become production designers. Their father was chief engineer at a power plant in Virginia. Matt's younger brother John worked with him as his chief draftsman.
He served in Europe in World War II, was inside of B-17, B-24, B-25 bombers and had four years as a flight test engineer.
Star Trek
Besides creating interiors and exterior of the Enterprise, Jefferies was responsible for designing props (including phasers), sets, the Klingon logo and D-7 battlecruiser. Years later, his concept sketches were revisited and used to design the Starship Enterprise, the Olympic class USS Pasteur, the Daedalus-class and pre-Federation Vulcan ships. Jefferies worked with NASA engineers in designing the Enterprise and the technology it used.
The public source identifies “Matt Jefferies” as american artist (1921–2003). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Matt, Jefferies and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2545468. VIAF identifies the subject as 2289082. The Library of Congress control number is no2008125025. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matt Jefferies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.