AdNausea

So today is a big day (as far as I’m hearing) for some big companies. Not only does Marvel now belong to Disney, for the sharp price tag of $4 billion (in cash and stocks) but IKEA has made the grave misstep of doing the most horrible, unthinkable thing ever - no. They didn’t fire the little children that make their furniture. No, they didn’t get rid of their meatballs. They… changed their font. <Gasp!>

Now, when I heard this news this morning (I do not have the catalog delivered) at first, my thought was “Woop-tee-do!” But now, after reading some blogs and news articles, I’m wondering if maybe the hoop-la is justified.

For over 60 years, Swedish company IKEA has used (in it’s catalogs, billboards, web, print and signage) a custom made version of the font Futura. They have recently switched fonts and the latest catalog, that arrived for most, last night, shows the new changes. People couldn’t believe their eyes! A new font? Now, I would understand this uproar a bit more if the fonts were completely different. Yes, IKEA furniture is based on clean, simple and well-structured lines, functional and geometric. And it made sense that their font choice reflects the same. So yes, if they had switched to Times New Roman, Georgia or Curlz, I would have understood more. But they didn’t. They didn’t even step outside the realm of sans-serif. They chose Verdana. Samples of each font are below, I’ll let you guess which is which.

Here are both sides of the story. First, the outraged people: (Like one gentleman who started a petition with already 700 signatures, but with twitter blowing up on this, shown below, it will rise fast, I guess). People who respect IKEA for their sense of design are usually some kind of designer themselves - creative, detail oriented and most importantly - most know their fonts. So to switch from a pretty classy font, custom made and used for 60 years to a font that is free from Microsoft - that any schmuck with a rich text email box or Word can access… well, that seems like a slap in the face.

Another argument is the fact that Verdana was designed for web use. It is meant to be viewed at book print size, in black and white and lots of it. If this gets blown up to the size of a headline (or god forbid, the famous IKEA billboards) you start to see the imperfections - the ample amount of space, the lack of rhythm. It just wasn’t meant to be viewed at that large of a scale.

Now, IKEA has yet to release an offical press statement, but of course, the people in charge of this decision probably had no idea the backlash they would get. Supposedly, they chose this font because it’s more effecient and economically smarter. Read: cheaper. Which is funny, because most of the stuff at the store is hella expensive. Why cheapen your brand, I say?

Another reason they changed is that this font was extensively developed - which means they can print materials with this font in multiple different languages and keep the same font. This point I understand.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it’s just a frickin’ font - and a very similar one at that. On the other… I really hate Verdana.

Here’s what others are saying (via source):

“Ikea, stop the Verdana madness!” - Tokyo’s Oliver Reichenstein

“Words can’t describe my disgust,” - Ben Cristensen of Melbourne.

“Horrific,” - Christian Hughes in Dublin.

Typophile, an online forum dedicated to the magical world of fonts, ended its first post on this subject with the words, “It’s a sad day.”