Did Typographical Fails Ruin The Oscars?

Reddit post mulls over possibility that the Oscars fiasco was caused by typographical failings

It could have been worse, at least The Oscars nomination sheets didn’t use Comic Sans MS.  Here’s our reconstruction of how it would have looked if Comic Sans MS was the chosen typeface.

“The Winner for the Best Use of Typography in an Internationally Recognised Awards Ceremony...” oh, forget it.  Forget it!  This year’s Oscars was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Memorable in the 1989 Brit Awards sense (don’t get us started on that one either).  Firstly for the La La Land cock-up.  Coming a close second was a failing in the typographical department.

In the original image (seen in this Reddit link), we see a few graphic design fails.  Firstly, The Oscars logo should be relegated to a bit part, possibly at the bottom right of the slip (as a product placement image).  The logo is positioned in the spot where the Best Picture category should be placed.  Instead, Best Picture is relegated to footer text in italicised Times New Roman form.

The rest of the text is in Futura Medium.  Capitalised no less (leave that bit to the keyboard warriors on social networking sites, please).  The choice of typeface isn’t too bad, but shouldn’t the film title be set to a heavier weight than that of the directors’ names?  If you did a City and Guilds NVQ in Desk Top Publishing, the difference between bold and normal type is next up from writing your name in terms of difficulty.

As our reconstruction shows, the stationery design for the Oscars could have been set to Comic Sans MS.  Even the Best Picture footer text stands out better with Comic Sans than the faint italicised Times New Roman.  Whilst we were in La La Land frothing at the mouth over this cock-up, the fellow who posted the screen grab had a point.  Some of the subsequent comments are pure gold.