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

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Ikea, as many of you know, changed their typeface for all catalog, in-store, and online presence to Verdana. Yes, Verdana. The outrage by graphic designers and others with an intuitive design sense let out an immediate cry of digust. An online petition was started. I just got around to signing it. It’s up to about 6300 right now. Their corporate identity for decades has revolved around the usage of such classic fonts such as Futura and Century Schoolbook on which they based their own typefaces, Ikea Sans and Ikea Serif, respectively. If you like timeless typography and good design, you need to head over to the petition website and sign it right away! Please don’t wait… Sign the petition to get Ikea to change Verdana back to their classic fonts! I can’t imagine, as much as I like dill salmon, swedish meatballs, cool cheap lamps, hanging canvass storage units, maple plywood bookcases, and hot pretzels on the way out, I just can’t imagine 3 hours of being confronted with a never-ending stream of Verdana in my face. I can’t do it…

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About Douglas Bonneville

Douglas has been a graphic designer since 1992, in addition to software developer and author. He is a member of Smashing Magazine's "Panel of Experts" and has contributed to over 100 articles. He is the author of "The Big Book of Font Combinations", loves cats, and plays guitar.

Comments

  1. iancu says

    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

  3. Douglas Bonneville says

    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 🙂

  4. quixote says

    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.

  5. Douglas Bonneville says

    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!

  6. quixote says

    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!