

Ikea Catalog's Move to the Verdana Font Angers Fans of Futura - ojbyrne
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/arts/design/05ikea.html

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tptacek
Ikea didn't anger fans of Futura. It angered fans of typography.

Reasonable people could debate whether Futura looked dated and idiosyncratic.
But almost nobody seems to have a defense for Verdana, which is a typeface
that makes a number of concesssions for legibility at small sizes on a
computer screen.

Worth reading though is Brand New blog's "Verdanagate" post:

[http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/verdanag...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/verdanagate.php)

Brand New certainly seems to think this is overblown. Gruber at Daring
Fireball suggests that this is an elaborate ruse to get Ikea lots of attention
and publicity from designers.

~~~
bprater
Agreed, this debate may sound silly to some, but for those of us that are
passionate about typography, making this sort of change is akin to the movie
studio going in and recutting Pulp Fiction to "make it better" or having the
staff at the Louvre adding a little something to the Mona List to "make it
better".

~~~
anigbrowl
It's true that a film titled with _Trajan_ shouldn't be retitled with _Action
Jackson_ (stereotypically 'classic' and 'hip, funny' fonts). And after
perusing the 2010 catalog, I agree it looks considerably uglier in type terms,
and that this is a mistake for a firm whose brand is partially built around
the democratization of good design.

Then again, perhaps the lowering of aesthetic expectations will help to reduce
the mild disappointment that accompanies appreciation of (most) Ikea products
as _ersatz_ and disposable substitutes for a level of aesthetic and
manufacturing quality most of us can only aspire to. Verdana, then, may be
regarded as a more truthful form of typographical communication, and signals a
shift away from a petty-bourgeois dialectical proposition towards a more
proletarian _[You may purchase the rest of this article for $59.95]_

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dcheong
For non-subscribers:

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dpcan
Any chance a poll can be added to this one? I have to agree that the Futura
"looked" much better.

However, their bottom-line reason for making the change is very interesting
and compelling: Cross-branding and language independence.

This appears to be the classic sacrifice of aesthetics for functionality.

~~~
acangiano
> This appears to be the classic sacrifice of aesthetics for functionality.

Like Ikea furniture.

~~~
holygoat
The opposite of Ikea furniture, which sacrifices functionality (and
robustness!) for aesthetics (and price).

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furyg3
I'm not a typography geek (or even a designer), but I'm fascinated with how
passionate people can be about typefaces. The documentary mentioned in the
article, _Helvetica_ , blew my mind, mostly because of the
passion/conflict/opinion that people have about something I take wholly for
granted.

<http://www.helveticafilm.com/>

Warning: watching this movie may have self-image ramifications such as "Wow,
did I just watch a documentary about a font?" :)

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johnnybgoode
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=788788>

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ComputerGuru
Honestly, both those fonts are terrible. Granted, nothing can match Verdana's
sheer blandness and genericness; but Futura is a very.... lame font for a
catalog - far too childish and silly. IMO, it was a good idea to change it,
but definitely not to stick Verdana in its place.

~~~
tptacek
Futura is "childish"? I've never heard it called that before. It's geometric,
mechanical, and inhuman; to type what Metropolis was to movies, maybe.

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brent
nytimes.com angered me (a fan of nyt) when this was their top story on the
front page yesterday.

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aw3c2
Do those people treat the Ikea Catalog as some sort of bible? Ikea is a huge
company, they surely have good reason to do this.

~~~
calambrac
_Ikea is a huge company, they surely have good reason to do this._

Not quite sure how the latter follows from the former...

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alxp
Font racism.

~~~
akd
You have already started your inevitable downmodding, but I think you have a
lot of truth to your comment. When people assail the change from Futura to
Verdana, most give only their personal aesthetic preference for Verdana -- a
pure assertion of its superiority.

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elduderino
I read that as "Futurama."

