written September 8th, 2009 · 1 comment

Ikea Ikea Ikea. Yesterday, my mom brought my attention to the chatter that is going on about Ikea’s typeface change, from Futura to Verdana. She heard about it on NPR. Honestly, I just received the new catalog last week and I flipped through it so fast that I didn’t notice the change. But when I went back and looked at it, I did notice the change, and it stood out so very blatantly.

Futura is one of the most beautiful typefaces ever created and so visually pleasing because of its geometry and symmetry. Ikea has built its identity around this typeface, which reflects the kind of design sensibilities Ikea has in its modern, sleek and simple products. At first glance the catalog set in Verdana looks cheap and totally ordinary. Futura has the ability to stand alone (see first image below) on the page, beautifully, without any frills. A page with text set in Verdana just doesn’t do it for me. The only thing that saves the layouts from completely bombing is that Ikea has good graphic designers. If you are good enough you can typeset any ol’ font.

Take a look. The images are every other old design, new design. The first image is from an old catalog.