Comments on: Georgia and Verdana extensions coming soon

By: Fontographer

Fontographer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:00:08 +0000

I seriously hope they expand the Unicode character sets. There are very few good fonts today and no Arial Unicode MS sucks compared to Arial (doesn’t even look the same besides having other issues.)

By: macuser

macuser — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:22:08 +0000

In fairness I like their iStove <– The stove so flat and shiny-black with 4 white circle lines.

By: RC

RC — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:17 +0000

@Shi7e: Awesome parody.

By: macuser

macuser — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:22:13 +0000

@Shi7e: LOL’d at “n00b company”

By: Shi7e

Shi7e — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:37:57 +0000

hangon IKEA dumped Futura (awesome font) for Verdana (only looks good as tiny text) !!!…wow they must also have complete plonkers onboard like M$ seems to have.. oh well its not like I bought their flatpack stuff.. only now I’ll just have one more reason not to ever shop at such noob company that makes stoopid decisions.

By: macuser

macuser — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:08:21 +0000

A friend of mine has the latest IKEA catalog that user Verdana, and also a copy of the previous catalog that uses that Futura font.

Without even analyzing, the Verdana version looked unprofessional than the Futura one. It proves that Verdana was really meant for on-screen use. (I’m with Kirkburn on this one — IKEA being centered on design chooses a typeface fit for screen-viewing but clunky-looking on-print.)

Now I am glad that Microsoft and Ascender Corporation will extend Verdana and provide variants for use in print. Verdana Light comes into mind here. Can’t wait for their On-Print version of Georgia!

QUESTIONS: What exactly are the reasons why IKEA chose Verdana again? Complete UNICODE Character Sets? Doesn’t “Arial Unicode” have that, too? Why can’t they just use Tahoma?

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:06:03 +0000

Also: claiming that some company has “betrayed” you because they changed their font is only “slightly” extreme?

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Maybe they’re thinking that their money and resources are better spent on the design of the furniture they’re selling than on the design of their letterhead?

By: Kirkburn

Kirkburn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:44:54 +0000

(That being said, the Verdana Light version shown at the top is fairly nice.)

By: Kirkburn

Kirkburn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:43:43 +0000

Fred, of course it’s not all that matters, but Verdana just isn’t a particularly visually pleasing font (in my opinion, but one I think is reasonably shared).

Yes, some of those comments are slightly extreme – but the rest of the article explains it pretty well. Hell, half those “extreme” comments are what I’d say too. It’s a bit like using Arial or Times New Roman for a presentation – it shows pretty much no thinking about design. Sure, it’s functional, but if you’re a company centred around design, what on earth are you thinking?