Aug 28

Its all a buzz on the internet, various tweets, blogs, and articles about the recent font change by Ikea from thier customized Futura font to Verdana. The news has even reached TIME magazine. People are outraged about this change. Mostly creative professionals. My question to IKEA is why would you make this change?

 

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. But even with that said I think it is a very short sighted solution.  Forgive my laymans understanding of web technology but, from what I understand they are currently working on a solution to allow fonts to be imbedded allowing for more then the standard fonts (ie. Arial, Times, Tahoma, etc.) to be used. And to throw away years of branding for a lesser quality font. Is their goal also to cheapen their brand? Tahoma was created to be a screen font, not a print font.

 

I can understand the urge to want to have unity in print and on web. After all, we as designers can appreciate consistency in font usage as brand identity.  But imagine if the trend of most companys were to employ this same strategy.  We'd have world full of pretty boring and tired print design, using this limited palate of typefaces.

 

I for one hope they go back to their original time tested and true identity and wait for technology to take care of their concerns.