Oh, Verdana, don’t you lie to me.
Did something feel wrong with the IKEA ad on page 21 of this week’s NOW? Sure the deals were great (who can argue a $70 MALM chest isn’t awesome?), but a little bit of IKEA’s identity fell away on that page too.
What used to be custom Futura text announcing sales and dimensions of utilitarian home furnishings with quirky Scandinavian nomenclature is now a pedestrian Verdana.
This might be meaningless to you, but it’s causing a stir with typography aficionados. There are petitions to prove it.
Personally, I don’t like it, but not for what it is for what it represents. Verdana is the cheap free Microsoft font of the mid-90s made for the web. Sure font legend Matthew Carter (he was in that Helvetica film) created it, but it’s bland and ever-present in our web reading.
Maybe it’s not even about how the font looks, but more about what it says about IKEA.
By switching to Verdana they must be making their lives a lot easier. Every computer has it, so whether they make an ad in Canada, Sweden or Poland, there’s no concern over making sure the right Futura family is there, or making ads with images instead of just dropping in text. Word has it the font was switched for Chinese markets.
It’s just easy, cheap and universal – which is what IKEA is at the core. We probably just don’t like hearing that design takes a backseat to cheapness and efficiency when we’re convincing ourselves that a Karlstad is just as good as a real Florence Knoll.[rssbreak]
