Thursday, October 1st 2009
New font, new voice?
Here at ICM we’re very loyal to the typefaces we use as part of our brand. Foundry is the main face for all primary communications with the slab-serif of Clarendon being used for our more ‘vocal’ communications.
I was pretty shocked when I noticed recently that Ikea was to drop their trademark typeface Futura in favour of Verdana, a fairly nondescript system font.
I personally feel this is a bad move. Merely typing the word SMEG, BILLY or CLOP in Futura instantly conjours up images of flatpack shelving. Verdana can’t hold it’s own at the cutting edge of interior style, something Futura did with ease.
It seems I’m not the only one. To-date, nearly 1000 Facebook users also agree – they’ve even set up a petition asking Ikea to change it back.
Ikea certainly don’t ‘own’ Futura. In fact they made some very tiny adjustments and named it IkeaSans. Catchy. So why the move after 66 years of business? Has the new-media age brought then to this on-screen-font conclusion? Maybe.
Futura is the most renowned work of German designer Paul Renner. It still looks modern 82 years after its release. Verdana was designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter, a Brit who is regarded as one of the most elegant type designers in the world. Taking years to perfect, Verdana is a typeface that was designed simply to look good on a computer screen. It is clear; it works well in many languages; it is unambiguous even at small point sizes.
That’s why I feel Ikea have made a mistake. their official reasoning is that it is more efficient and cost-effective. Anyone with an eye for good design will think the move to Verdana makes Ikea look a little cheap.
But who am I to judge? I’ve set up a little poll via Twitter for users to vote on the preferred:
here are the results so far:
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