How Bad Typography Can Affect a Country Negatively
Typography in design is easy, right? Just choose a suitable font, resize and change the color? Haha, wrong.
How Serious Can Typography Errors Be?
- Saying the wrong winners at the Oscars and Miss Universe
- Choosing the wrong candidates for president
- Getting lost because you took the wrong road on the tollway
- Taking medicine wrong because the instructions are too complicated
- Safety rules that are confusing to understand
Oh, Typography
Not talked about much by designers because fonts and letters don’t usually get appreciation from design fans or users. Many, whether new or experienced, underestimate the importance of typography, even though they’re the basic and most vital part of visual design.
Typography matters because it influences the success of a project. When used well, it helps readers easily understand the information we’re sharing.
Simply put, typography is a technique to enhance visual design that provides a specific impression, especially in terms of readability comfort. Small mistakes made in typography can have a very fatal impact when compared to all other design aspects. Here are 3 fatal typography mistakes in the world.
Oscar Announcement 2017
The Academy Award or Oscar is a prestigious film industry award in America attended by top-notch actors. The event made a fatal mistake during the announcement of the Oscar winners in 2017, specifically, due to the mix-up of envelopes between the Best Picture and Best Actress categories.
There are causes and effects as to why it could happen. Let’s take a look at the design of the envelope below.
The most crucial part of the envelope is its category, not the Oscar logo, which is even placed at the bottom in a small size. There’s no clear distinction between the two envelopes, especially for the Best Actress and Best Picture categories, making it quite understandable if they were mixed up.
“Typography fix that could have stopped the oscars best picture blunder”
— Benjamin Bannister
Miss Universe 2015 Announcement
here was also an error in the announcement during Miss Universe 2015, and it was related to the design of the announcement envelope, which looked like this:
Our eyes naturally tend to scan from left to right, ensuring that what we’re reading is correct. This slow scanning condition becomes problematic during quick announcements, where clarity is crucial.
Moreover, there is the writing (1st) for Colombia and winner, actually located in the right corner like a layout, with the use of a small winner font similar to the signature layout without any winner or highlight indication.
By implementing a tiered typography hierarchy from top to bottom and strategically emphasizing words like “Winner,” along with grouping through shapes (using stroke and fill), a clear distinction can be established between the Runner-Up and First Winner. This approach aims for swift and precise readability, ensuring that the most crucial information is easily visible at a glance.
US Presidential Election 2000 Voting
A more fatal incident occurred during the presidential election in 2000 in Palm Beach County, Florida. The multitude of candidates and the forced use of two sections on the butterfly ballot led those (Palm Beach County residents, Florida) who voted for Al Gore to mistakenly cast their votes.
After looking closely, this design is not user-friendly and is uncomfortable for people voting for the president. The part for the first and last candidates is the easiest to understand.
A lot of Americans said they voted for both circles (numbers 4 and 5) for Al Gore or accidentally picked between 4 and 5. Maybe if the designers had been more careful with the writing on the ballot, America’s history would be different today.
The use of typography in alternative designs is easy to understand because we only focus from top to bottom. There’s no need to analyze left and right first to see which candidate should be chosen and then select which circle to vote for, eliminating confusion.
Besides all that, we often encounter bad typography mistakes around us, but it doesn’t seem to have much impact. However, what if you are Al Gore? Warren Beatty or Steve Harvey, the announcer of the winners?
Then, what if safety procedures on how to open the emergency door make you more panicked and faint? So, make sure to pay extra attention to the typography you create and conduct a brief survey with people who are not part of your project.
Typography is not just about making it readable from top to bottom, but it can also be from the middle, top, then down, and most importantly, designers must know the goal and which part should be read first.
Becoming a typography expert takes time and further study to gain a deep understanding. Therefore, in the next opportunity, I will provide information about common mistakes along with tips and tricks for designers to avoid small errors that can have significant consequences due to typography.
Great sources of knowledge for creating this article include:
