Word: verdana
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...Indeed, the desire to remind people - and corporations - that design matters is what spurred design consultant Ursache to start a petition asking Ikea to do away with the offensive Verdana typeface. "Look, I know this isn't world hunger," he says. "But if a company like Ikea can make this mistake, you have to wonder who is going to lead when it comes to design." (Read "Furniture for Everyone...
...this outrage over a font? For some designers, it's an issue of propriety - Verdana, which was invented by Microsoft, was intended to be used on a screen, not on paper. "It has open, wide letterforms with lots of space between characters to aid legibility at small sizes on screen," explains Simon l'Anson, creative director at Made by Many, a London-based digital-consulting company. "It doesn't exhibit any elegance or visual rhythm when set at large sizes. It's like taking the family sedan off-road. It will sort of work, but ultimately gets bogged down...
...Carolyn Fraser, a letterpress printer in Melbourne, Australia, adopts a different metaphor to explain the problem. "Verdana was designed for the limitations of the Web - it's dumbed down and overused. It's a bit like using Lego to build a skyscraper, when steel is clearly a superior choice...
...chain's key identifying features. "The former typeface definitely better reflected Ikea's design philosophy, giving it a very special, unique flavor that actually fit the company's style," says Vitaly Friedman, editor in chief of the online Smashing Magazine, which is dedicated to Web design. "With Verdana being used all across the Web, Ikea's image not only loses originality, but also credibility and the reputation that the company has built since the 1940s...
...would Ikea make such a change? The very ubiquity of Verdana seems to be part of the font's appeal. Freely distributed by Microsoft, the typeface allows Ikea to use the same font in all countries and with many alphabets. "It's more efficient and cost-effective," says Ikea spokeswoman Monika Gocic. "Plus, it's a simple, modern-looking typeface." (Read "The Store That Runs on a Wrench...