What: A redesign on one of the most famously curious font choices in recent years.
Who: James Cameron and his Avatar team.
Why we care: It’s the highest-grossing movie in cinema history, and yet when it came time to create the logo for 2009’s Avatar, James Cameron and co. made a shockingly chintzy decision: the Papyrus font. Yes, that’s right, a film that ushered in groundbreaking technological advances used a logo that rivals only Comic Sans in terms of sheer hideousness.
How could this have possibly happened? It’s a subject Saturday Night Live thoroughly parsed in a standout sketch from last season, starring Ryan Gosling. Anyone still puzzled by the decision will have reason to rejoice this week, however, as Cameron’s Lightstorm production company and Fox have just unveiled a new, Papyrus-free logo.
This change is perhaps a signal to viewers that the impending four (?!?!?) sequels will be different from the originals. For instance, whereas the plot of the first film was almost a note-for-note reboot of Ferngully, the new films might not be.
In case you’re wondering whether that SNL sketch really had any influence on Avatar’s design team, the below tweet from about a month ago suggests that it did.
Fondly reminiscing on the anniversary of our favorite SNL skit. Thanks for the laughs, @nbcsnl! https://t.co/iRiMqHil3m
— Avatar (@officialavatar) September 30, 2018
Fast Company has reached out to Chris Costello, the man who invented Papyrus, to see whether he’s doing okay in the wake of this news, and will update this post when he responds.
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