Marc Friedland, founder and creative director of Marc Friedland Couture Communications, shows his design new envelopes for the 83rd Academy Awards®. Photo: Gina Yarbrough/San Diego County News
LOS ANGELES–Marc Friedland, founder and creative director of Marc Friedland Couture Communications, was selected to design new envelopes and announcement cards bearing the names of the winners of the 83rd Academy Awards® on Sunday.
While this year’s ceremony marked the 70th anniversary of the use of a sealed envelope as part of the presentation, this marks the first time it now has an iconic design.
“The envelopes are such an integral part the Academy Awards, yet there has never been a dramatic specially-designed envelope and card to announce the Oscar® recipients,” said Cohen and Mischer. “We felt it was time to change that, and Marc Friedland was the first person we thought of to create something special for the telecast.”
Friedland’s custom-designed envelope will be hand-crafted from a high-gloss, iridescent metallic gold paper stock, with a red-lacquered lining featuring the Oscar statuette hand-stamped in satin gold-leaf.
Envelopes and announcement cards bearing the names of the winners of the 83rd Academy Awards® is displayed for the media. Photo: Gina Yarbrough
The outside of the envelope and flap is an art deco-inspired satin gold foil frame with an ecru inset panel bearing the name of the award category in a rich charcoal ink. Inside the envelope will be a heavy-weight card featuring gold-foil accents and a gold-leaf embossed Oscar statuette along with the phrase, “And the Oscar goes to….” The winner’s name will be printed in charcoal ink and mounted onto a matching, red lacquer hand-wrapped frame. The back of the card will be printed with the award category.
Friedland produced an announcement card for each of the year’s nominees. After final tabulation of the ballots, Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas, the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) partners, inserted the appropriate announcement cards and fastened the envelope with a red double-faced satin ribbon and a red lacquered and gold embossed seal featuring the PwC logo. All of the remaining nominee cards are then destroyed.
“I wanted to create an envelope that matched the iconic stature of the Oscars® as an event known and watched around the world,” said Friedland. “So few people actually ever hold these envelopes yet nearly a billion view it. And like the Oscar statuette, the envelope is deserving of its own iconic status. To create it felt like a beautiful gesture—an enduring way to commemorate and capture the importance of the moment at this illustrious event,” he adds.
