New Academy Awards Envelope & Watch How The Oscar Statues Are Made

Over the past few months, AMPAS has been sending out a flurry of press announcements such as what’s going on during Oscar week, the official Oscar App, the many Academy Awards presenters and the various Hollywood street closures. It’s an exciting and busy time for all year-round Oscar followers. Seeing as I’m going back for a second year of Oscar coverage, I’m more than a little ecstatic to be a guest of the Academy again. Just today telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer announced that Marc Friedland has been selected to design new envelopes and announcement cards bearing the names of Oscar® winners at the 83rd Academy Awards. This year’s ceremony will mark the 70th anniversary of the use of sealed envelopes as part of the presentation.

“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 handcrafted from a high-gloss, iridescent metallic gold paper stock, with a red-lacquered lining featuring the Oscar statuette hand-stamped in satin gold leaf.

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.  The envelope will contain a heavyweight ecru 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 will produce 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, will insert the appropriate announcement cards and fasten 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 will then be 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, but I want everyone to see how special they really are.”

Friedland is a Los Angeles-based custom invitation designer creating stationery arts for high-end clients. This year marks the 25th anniversary of his namesake business along with Creative Intelligence, his experiential branding agency counterpart.

Don’t forget to check out the Oscars Designer Challenge HERE where you can vote on the dress you’d like to see on the Oscar stage and watch as Academy members offer their unique insights and perspectives on the outstanding nominees in six of this year’s Oscar categories in the Oscar Category Spotlights seen HERE. Plus, have a look at this video from MyFoxChicago on the Oscar statues. Since 1982, R.S. Owens & Company has been making the world famous Oscar, and they’ll be handing them out in Hollywood.

Chicago’s R.S. Owens & Company Makes Oscar Statues: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. ET.  The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

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