Why wait? Let's dive straight to the bottom: Souvenir!

It would be helpful to share with your readers why indeed you assert that it is globally ill-advised to use Verdana in printed and Web materials.

Actually, I don't think Verdana is "globally ill-advised". It's a useful font for onscreen material -- as I mentioned, it's my go-to font when I'm writing and editing onscreen.

But Matthew Carter didn't design Verdana to be its best at large sizes in print. And Ikea has chosen to use Verdana that way, as well as in other ways for which the typeface is better suited.

Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com

Comic Sans should be destroyed!

When working on websites and trying to balance your client's identity along with restrictions from dynamic content, it gets frustrating mixing incompatible typefaces -- especially if your client already uses a sans serif face that is not part of the font list on the average computer. I can see why they chose to use Verdana all around. It makes everything consistent.

I'm fairly certain that IKEA tested different versions and asked readers which they preferred. Or they did a blind test to see if they increased lift with the new design. I doubt they'd make a major design decision without knowing the financial impact on sales.

Test your designs and test again. I'll take ho-hum design with high conversions over pretty design with low conversions any day of the week!

Clearly, an even worse choice would be Papyrus/Ancient Script. I cringe every time I see that on a storefront, or used as a font for credits on tv or in a film. Augh!

At least it's not Papyrus.

Verdana - bredth... there is none!

A family like Stone would have been a great choice. That family has a great serif font as well as their sanserif, and the weights are all great for anything - even a copier. It just holds up on the web, email, any kind of printer and design wise almost any spacing you might like to use.

Jim Coventry

Times would be worse. Personally, I think it's uglier than Comic Sans. But then again, I love Helvetica Nueue. :-)

Cooper Black ROOLS!

...Trajan or Comic Sans

Im not disgusted by Verdana, but the samples shown need to be KERNED..does anyone remember kerning?

Looks to me like they did what they set out to do, Made You (us) Look.
Instead of making a beautiful picture, they made a train wreck. No surprise, for years I've been pronouncing IKEA as Icky-A.

Yes we know Verdana is one of just a handful of web safe screen fonts but hey its a print catalogue - they had a choice!

hmmm but what would be worse....
Brush Script - in caps!

My vote is that they should have used Rage! That would have made them informal, yet DYNAMIC!!!

I'm not hugely upset by the choice of using Verdana in this catalogue. What I do find hugely upsetting is that each and every time Verdana is used in a print situation it needs to be kerned. By hand. Each word. Just wears me out thinking about it. Or everything is going to read poorly. Your choice Ikea. Do it right, or just don’t do it.

While font selection is part of it (and a small part at that), shouldn't we be focusing on the actual wording, style of writing and content? While an IKEA catalog is never going to win the Pulitzer, is this much attention on a font choice worth squat? These are FONTS people. Not curing cancer or really changing the world.

Maybe we should take it a step further and look for ways to hold IKEA to a higher standard of green manufacturing, suppliers, transport and packaging reduction (gasp!)
Then, we can all use the coolest/retro/oh so precious font of the day to convey a message of action and information, not fluff.

If you could reduce your production costs in today's economy, wouldn't you? It's a wonder anyone still produces a print catalog because it demands a higher budget to produce than an e-Commerce site. For example, I bet that InDesign Magazine is produced as a PDF Document and not a print magazine because of the cost, even though a printer owns not only the magazine but also this website. Rather than publish rants and raves about the subject, why not publish an interview story on why IKEA made the switch to Verdana. That would be worthwhile content. But short of that, take heart, a style or custom script will handle the tedious task of kerning Verdana.

Ricky

...what font they use, but good grief, using curly apostrophes. Sheesh.

I admit I don't use Verdana for much anything. Yet, if IKEA is trying to get attention by using Verdana, bad spacing, and so-called incompetent follow-thru, let them. It's taken me some years to get over all this ruckus caused by conservatives. When grunge type came out (and still persists in some type catalogs) there was a minimum of screaming and Hobo or Paprus, etc. didn't stand a chance against that ugly glop.
I think what goes on, every now and then, is that we get up and show self-righteous indignation because no one has heard from us in a while. For example, IKEA's designers, probably idiots from some art school, didn't ask for OUR opinions.
Some of the letters before me were funny, some didn't care one way or the other (myself included), but some, to me, have no room to talk.
When I see current books which can't differentiate "kerning" from "letterspacing," then we all know the "neophytes" are still at work. Line-spacing and leading is also all over the map. When DTP took over traditional typesetting they wanted the rest of us to follow THEIR rules, as if they knew something.
Bob Long

Is my world going to fall apart b/c of this switch? Is anyone's? Of course not. But it's a high-profile example of how some typefaces are carefully tailored for specific uses. You *can* break the rules and use those typefaces in other ways, but you gotta do it mindfully.
poker bot

Joe,

hello

'm not hugely upset by the choice of using Verdana in this catalogue. What I do find hugely upsetting is that each and every time Verdana is used in a print situation it needs to be kerned

regards,
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