Comments on: Dear Ikea: Verdana is not a top font and now I can’t go in your store

By: barney

barney — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:50:01 +0000

Anyway, who cares about Ikea ?

By: quixote

quixote — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:18:34 +0000

Hi Douglas- I get it now. I tried Verdana at huge sizes and I see what you mean about how spread out it is. That sense of having to throw a lasso to get to the next letter.

I get a real kick out of becoming aware of subtle influences for which the conscious mind tries to compensate but that work their effect regardless.

Thanks!

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:44:21 +0000

Hi Quixote: Verdana, designed to be used at small sizes on the screen, looks like an elephant on a tightrope at larger sizes. Form should follow function, and Verdana does not look right at large sizes in print because it was not designed for that purpose. Microsoft commissioned it to be a free font included with Windows for displaying of web pages. Try setting “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” in Verdana and Arial, and print at maybe 40 or 50 pts and see how ungainly Verdana looks!

By: quixote

quixote — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:59:02 +0000

I’m rather late to this thread, so you may not see this. I was noodling around the web, looking for information on typeface combinations (very nice article you have on that!), and wound up here.

As a complete amateur, I have to ask: what’s wrong with Verdana? I quite like it for web type. My list for sans serifs usually goes: Deja Vu Sans, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica. Am I making a ghastly floater? My criteria are pretty much that “kern” and “kem” should not look like the same word, and that the uprights of “u” and “n” in a word like lacuna shouldn’t melt together on the screen. And that in some nebulous way, I like it. I’m curious to know what I’m missing about the aesthetics of Verdana.

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:01:34 +0000

Well now I’m low on dish towels and stackable glasses, and need some of those classy simple black-trimmed picture frames. I’m going to have to brave it and go! I think I’ll write another post about what it was like to walk through the Fields of Verdana, which no doubt the Stoughton MA Ikea store has been transformed into

By: Douglas Bonneville

Douglas Bonneville — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:28:13 +0000

iancu: Thanks for stopping by. I wonder if the article in the Time will have any effect on this. We’ll have to see…

By: iancu

iancu — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:04:29 +0000

They won’t change it back, sad as it is, only us designers care enough and are displeased by their decision. For the rest of the world it will be just a little, insignifiant change—too feeble to deserve any attention.

Thanks for inking. Regards.
iancu