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.

and-per-se-and

When reading Jane Austin’s Persuasion the other day I came across a seemingly strange gathering of characters – &c. I immediately (two days later) set forth to discover the meaning. It didn’t take me long to find out that &c. stood for etc. which of course in Latin means “et cetera” or “and so forth”.

This then got me into the history of the ampersand. The ampersand stands for “and” and the Latin for “and” is “et”. So consequently the ampersand symbol is a fusion of the “e” and “t”. It seems so obvious to me now but my real question from all this is why has it taken me so long to question the ampersand? Of course, one reason is we never seem to question the familiar. There are certain things we are brought up around and know but never seem to question, for instance when we meet someone new we shake their hand. We know what a handshake is for and how to use it but we never question where it comes from. Only a few months ago did I bother to look up the history of the “@” symbol finding out it originally came from accounting. The graphic designer within me feels very disappointed at myself for taking so long to discover the history of the ampersand. News years resolution – question more!

There is a very interesting, concise, history of the ampersand by Jonathan Hoefler over at H&FJ’s.

New Toy! pt.2

As you know a few months ago I bought a box of mixed letterpress type from an antiques fair. Well, now I have a lovely Adana 8x5 printing press to go with it, thanks to ebay and a very nice man in Wales. I have already had my first printing job adding my dad’s company logo to their Christmas cards, yippee!

New Toy!

Yesterday I went to an antique fair and while there I found a box full of movable metal type! I have all ways loved using traditional methods of printing and my interest grew for movable type when I saw Stephen Fry's documentary on the Gutenberg Press. The box is in a mess with type every where but I'm gunna have fun sorting it all out.

This Way Up!

This is some inspired way finding for a car park in Melbourne by Axel Peemöller. I love the idea of playing around and misshaping the letters so they can only be viewed correctly from a certain angle nice play with perspective. His web site is really nice to mess around with as well. Will bring hours of joy (well maybe just minutes).

ABC3D!!!

The ABC3D book, so simple and brilliant. The kind of thing you wish you'd thought of yourself....but sadly didn't.

the Rather Difficult Font Game

To continue the theme of my new found font wisdom I played the rather difficult font game. I didn't do too well, I got 15/34.

Haas Grotesk v. Helvetica

I used to avoid typography like the plague. I was in a naive cloud of denial that I could be a graphic designer and not appreciate it but recently I've become strangely attracted to it. Maybe I'm just growing up. Any way, this poster was designed by a Graphic's student in Wales called Sam Mallet. While on work experience in Zürich Sam created these posters showing the subtle difference between the 1957 typeface Haas Grotesk and the 1960 typeface Helvetica. I bought one of the posters in red/blue, I see it as the cornerstone of my typography revelation.