Susan "Suzy" Elizabeth Rice is a screenwriter, author of fiction, painter and designer. Rice is noted as the designer of the logo for the series of Star Wars films, as well as many other film logo designs for print advertising and some filmed applications.
Life
Rice was educated at Western Illinois University, the University of Florida and the University of California, Irvine.
Whilst studying at Florida, Rice married the screenwriter and novelist Daniel H. Vining. She and Vining divorced, and she later married the designer and Rolling Stone art director Anthony S. "Tony" Lane and worked under the name of Suzy Rice-Lane.
Rice lived and worked in Maui, Hawaii, for eight years where she worked as a painter before returning to California.
Work
thumb|Suzy Rice's original Star Wars logo
thumb|The final version of Rice's famous Star Wars logo (1977)
thumb|[[Title sequence designer Dan Perri's original Star Wars logo]]
Early in her career, Rice designed Dancing Madness (1976), a book written by Abe Peck, who was at the time an associate editor at Rolling Stone magazine. This led Rice to work as assistant art director and designer for the magazine under her then-married name of Suzy Vining.
Rice liaised with Lucasfilm, Ltd. and on a visit to their visual effects production company, Industrial Light & Magic in Van Nuys, she met with the director, George Lucas. Lucas instructed Rice to produce a logo that would intimidate the viewer, and he reportedly asked for the logo to appear "very fascist" in style. Rice took a keen interest in typography and studied German font design for this task. Her response to her brief was to produce a bold logotype using an outlined, modified Helvetica Black. After some feedback from Lucas, Rice decided to join the S and T of STAR and the R and S of WARS. In the version approved by Lucas, the letter W had sharp, pointed tips. Lucas signed off the brochure in between takes while involved in second unit filming.
While employed at Seiniger Advertising, Rice was responsible for title design work and print advertising campaigns for a number of other films. She also designed a number of record album covers and various logos, posters and print advertising for the entertainment and healthcare industries. Years after her work for Seiniger Advertising and Lucasfilm, Rice returned to full-time education at the University of California, Irvine.