

Dear IKEA: Verdana is not a font. It's a mistake. - shortformblog
http://shortformblog.com/biz/verdana-is-not-a-font-we-repeat-ikea-verdana-is-not-a-font

======
johnnybgoode
Some of you are speculating about the reason for the change. Here it is from
the source:

 _In an interview with the Swedish design magazine Cap & Design, IKEA’s Ivana
Hrdlickova says the main reason for the switch was to allow the company to use
the same typeface in all countries (current IKEA typefaces do not contain
Asian characters, for example). Being that Verdana was designed for the web,
it also allows the company’s image to remain consistent online and in print._

~~~
shortformblog
I actually posted a follow-up article based on this information, based on
something hilarious I found when researching.

My bit: [http://shortformblog.com/world/ikea-changed-their-fonts-
to-r...](http://shortformblog.com/world/ikea-changed-their-fonts-to-reach-
chinese-yawn-customers)

The original article (skip the middleman):
[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-
ikea25-2009aug25...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-
ikea25-2009aug25,0,7736661.story)

Considering that was the reason, it's kind of hilarious that people in China
go to IKEA to essentially loiter.

~~~
johnnybgoode
Yeah, plus <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=785609>. What a deal! :)

------
le_dominator
Just a stab in the dark, but there could be several reasons to try a font like
Verdana:

1) Cheap licensing fees. The best typefaces cost plenty of money to use. There
is a recession going on but.. c'mon.. you know?

2) It is a challenge to set and make professional use of a shitty typeface.
Perhaps this was a ballsy exercise in flaunting an anti-elitist sort of
position by using a "proletarian" font. Who knows?

I used to get into friendly, though heated, debates with a friend who would
accuse me of being an academic typographer. As a defense, I challenged him to
make good use of a junky font like Times New Roman to determine who actually
had skill and who was a stylistic fashion whore.

Maybe this is some such attempt by the designers, I don't know? I kinda have a
hard time believing that the print designer(s) for Ikea of all places simply
made a bonehead error by using a screen font for print.

Just my 3 million bajillion cents. Side note: if anyone has a magical potion
that helps to make a succinct point, I'd like to have a teaspoon or so :D

------
ScottWhigham
How odd - his font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,Nimbus
Sans,Verdana,sans-serif"

~~~
shortformblog
It's a font of last resort, just in case the user has one font on their
system.

~~~
ScottWhigham
I think that having Verdana was not the odd bit; it was assuming that anyone
would have "Nimbus Sans" installed ;)

~~~
shortformblog
:D

Due to the site's design, which leans heavily on its font, I mainly picked
that based on numbers suggesting a lot of Linux users didn't have Helvetica
installed. So I tried to pick the most popular Helvetica-like font that usage
numbers suggested they would actually have.

And I still put it in front of Verdana. :)

------
mahmud
Maybe it's a strategic change, meant to make itself more _affordable_ ; its
previous font, Futura, is a bit fancy. If IKEA wants to go to the masses, it
has already, it might help to dumb down its image and appeal to the coupon-
magazine crowd.

