It’s all too-easy to get tunnel-vision during a design project and screw it up with some piece of minutia that falls through the cracks because it lays outside your field of expertise. The more trivial mistakes end up being the wost, because they’re so glaringly obvious to some subset of the population that does not include you. A subset like… astronomers. (Or 3rd graders in science class.)
Moon Movie Poster - Sam Rockwell
Duncan Jones’ upcoming “Moon” is definitely on my must-see list this summer. It looks like a great Sci-Fi thriller. And the production and collateral design is tightly integrated. This gives the website, the trailer and the poster real power when it comes to creating a brand/identity. But… they screwed up on the poster when it comes to checking their facts. Whoever designed this did a fantastic job nailing a unique style that looks modern and classic at the same time; they also clearly had no idea how far the Moon was from Earth.
The tag line says “950,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face… is yourself.” That sounds great, it’s intriguing, it even has a twist right at the end, but the moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. According to Bad Astronomy, the only thing 950,000 miles out is a telescope or two and maybe some space dust. Yikes. Considering the movie’s tag-line is such a key element to the design, it certainly would’ve been worth vetting before going to print. A quick Google could’ve avoided the problem.
Having said that, they’ve already gone and done the next best thing besides getting right in the first place; they quickly corrected the poster and changed the tag line to “250,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face… is yourself.” You can check it out here in all it’s glory: Ain’t It Cool News – Moon Movie Poster.
Bravo! Admitting a mistake and moving to fix it immediately is the most sensible reaction to situations like this.
