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  • There's this moment at the Oscars, right before La La Land was mistakenly awarded Best

  • Picture, where you can really tell that whatever Warren Beatty is looking at doesn't make

  • sense.

  • "For Best Picture..."

  • "You're impossible."

  • He knew something was wrong, but he wasn't sure.

  • But here's an idea: what if better typography could have prevented this whole snafu?

  • Let's walk through what that could have looked like.

  • We know from this shot that the announcement card looks something like this.

  • The card is serving two purposes: on one hand, it's a beautiful souvenir for the winner,

  • and on the other hand, it's a cue card for a very high-pressure public presentation.

  • So how do you make this easier to read in front of 30 million live viewers?

  • Let's look at how the card compares to the line that the announcer has to say.

  • We read things from top to bottom, but at the top isOscars”... that's not useful

  • information for the people on stage... at the Oscars.

  • "That's like a few milliseconds of extra time that those presenters have to go through

  • when they're presenting, they have to go through all this information.

  • That's benjamin bannister, he's a graphic designer who put together an alternate design

  • for the announcement card.

  • "It's like driving on the side of the road, you literally have a few seconds to read all

  • the information on the signs, or else you're going to make a wrong turn.”

  • 'Best Actress' should be the first thing on the page.

  • Make it a little easier to read, and now, the presenters have a clear sign that they've

  • got the wrong card.

  • But this still treats the winner with the same emphasis as the movie they appeared played

  • in, which, while it's nice to have, is really just extra context.

  • You solve that by making the name of the winner the biggest thing on the page.

  • If the presenters were given this card, one of two things would have happened: their eyes

  • would have first readBest Actress,” orEmma Stone”.

  • Not La La Land.

  • You can apply the same fix to the card that prompted Steve Harvey to crown the wrong person

  • Miss Universe in 2015.

  • No bad typography, no confusion, no embarrassing mix-up.

  • The consequences of bad graphic design extend far beyond award shows.

  • In the fall of 2000, the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, Florida was tasked

  • with designing a ballot with more candidates than could fit on a single column.

  • It wound up looking like thisit was called a “butterfly ballotbecause of the way

  • the text occupied two columns.

  • If you were voting for Bush, this form made enough senseto pick the first candidate,

  • you punched in the first bubble.

  • But then, to vote for the second candidate on the list, Al Gore, you had to punch in

  • the third bubble.

  • See the problem?

  • The Palm Beach Post estimated that over 2,800 Gore voters accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan.

  • "A number of voters here in Palm Beach County have filed lawsuits asking for a new election

  • because they claim they either voted for the wrong candidate or double punched their ballots

  • because of confusion over the ballot design."

  • Bush won Florida by a margin of 537 votes.

  • Better typography here arguably could have changed US history.

  • Graphic designer Michael Beirut put together this version of what that ballot could have

  • looked like.

  • It uses the same format, but consolidates information horizontally, so that you can

  • fit all the same candidate names in the same amount of space.

  • Instead of there being two conflicting visual paths to follow, there's just one.

  • There's also a lesson here for public health.

  • When it comes to health, there's probably no single piece of household typographic design

  • that's as common as this one: the orange prescription bottle.

  • These have been around since just after World War II, and they haven't changed much apart

  • from the addition of a child-safety cap in the 1970s.

  • But they're not the easiest things to read.

  • Just look at how information is prioritized here.

  • The pharmacy branding is often the first and biggest thing on the label, which is fairly

  • unimportant information for the user.

  • The rest of the text on the label is small, and it's all the same size and weight.

  • Even these confusing numbers, which the user doesn't need at all, get the same amount

  • of emphasis as everything else.

  • On top of that, some key warnings are printed on hard-to-read color combinations, like black

  • on dark red.

  • Put all of that on a curved bottle that you have to rotate to read, and you're left

  • with a pretty unfriendly design.

  • A design student named Deborah Adler, created a model for what a new and improved

  • pill bottle could look like.

  • She called it Clear Rxshe was inspired after her grandmother took her grandfather's

  • medicine by accident.

  • And it's a common problem.

  • Experts estimate there are 500,000 cases per year in the U.S. of people misreading prescription

  • bottle instructions.

  • In Adler's design, The branding moves to the bottom, and the most important information

  • for the user is big at the top.

  • Adler also included color-coded rings, so that the packaging clearly distinguishes between

  • users, not just between medications.

  • The extra surface area on the back allows for space to be dedicated to warnings for

  • the user.

  • Target bought this design and rolled it out in 2005 to positive reception.

  • But 10 years after that, Target sold its pharmacy business to CVS, and the new pill bottle disappeared.

  • Stories emerged afterward that some users had actually fished their old Target bottles

  • out of the trash because of how much they liked them.

  • Others took to Twitter.

  • CVS has said that it's developing a new, similar modelbut it hasn't released

  • it yet.

  • As with a lot of designs, it's hard to notice the things that are done well until they aren't

  • there anymore.

  • “I think it was a good moment to show people and educate them on the fact that design does

  • matter.

  • And most people seem to forget, and say it's not a big deal.

  • Until something like this happens.

  • Designers are there to prevent things like this from happening.”

  • So would different typography have totally changed outcomes in any of these cases?

  • Maybe.

  • But if you're Warren Beatty or Steve Harvey or Al Gorethat's a pretty bigmaybe.”

There's this moment at the Oscars, right before La La Land was mistakenly awarded Best

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