From IKEA Sans to Verdana? Really?

For some reason IKEA has decided to downgrade. With an excuse of its “more efficient and cost-effective” they have changed their house font from IKEA Sans (Futura) to Verdana. This is not good.

Why is this not good? Because IKEA is a company that produces a large amount of printed material e.g. the IKEA catalogue and packaging. Verdana is a font that was created to be used on screen in small body text. Verdana just doesn’t have the elegance or grace that IKEA Sans (Futura) has to pull off large headings and titles. Verdana’s large open letterforms cause it to have a ploddy effect when used as main headings. IKEA Sans (Futrua) has an understated geometric sophistication that suits both large and small text and seems to reflect the ‘design-led’ furniture it’s advertising.

IKEA’s decision to change typeface is being excused away with the reason that IKEA Sans (Futura) doesn’t have enough foreign characters for some markets as well as not being web savvy. So why don’t they just have more characters created for IKEA Sans (Futura) and use modern techniques for the use of non-standard web fonts on the net? Doesn’t that make more sense than to replace a mostly good solution with a worse one?

P.S. If you haven’t guessed, IKEA Sans is Futura but with flat apexes.

Five re-brand

I noticed a few weeks ago that channel Five have changed their branding. It was done by design studio Dixon Baxi. I’m still not sure what I think of the re-brand. I really liked the branding Spin did. I think it really set Five apart from the other channels and moved them away from a bit of a joke to a credible channel. I suspect Dixon Baxi’s brand will grow on me but at the moment I’m still morning the previous Helvetican branding.