Wayne Molinare
Wayne Molinare is an industrial designer who has worked for numerous companies over the years, including his own.
Shortly after graduating from Parsons School of Design, he began to work for Coleman, Lipuma, Segal & Morrill (CLS&M), a consumer packaging firm based out of New York City. In 1983, by which time he held the position of art director, CLS&M, which had previously been responsible for the packaging design for the 1980s A Real American Hero relaunch of G.I. Joe, was contracted by Hasbro to come up with the packaging design for the original The Transformers toyline, and Molinare was assigned with that task. For this, he was provided with Takara's original Diaclone and Micro Change toys in their original Japanese packaging, and had to figure out how to transform the toys, and translate that to the American market.
While doing so, Molinare not only came up with the layout for the bios (which were trimmed down versions of the bios written by Bob Budiansky) and the Tech Specs, but also created the original logo for the Transformers brand, as well as the original Autobot and Decepticon faction insignias, which he based on the heads of Prowl/Bluestreak and Soundwave, respectively.
Molinare was also responsible for the package art of the toyline's original line-up. Where applicable, he would resort to reusing existing Japanese artwork from the Diaclone toys' packaging. For the rest, he would commission artists such as Jeffrey Mangiat and Mark Watts to provide artwork done in the same general style.<ref name="stack">"Who designed the original Autobot and Decepticon logos?" at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange.</ref>
Following his stint at CLS&M, Molinare worked for HG Toys HK Ltd. and then subsequently for Group 4 Design, before starting his own company, Molinare Design Inc.