Ikea

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, i've been away running a youth camp for my job, and now that i'm back, i'm leaving for America in a few hours! Thought I would share something interesting with you before I left..... IKEA'S NEW TYPEFACE! And believe me I was shocked! After years of using their own style of Futura, Ikea has decided to switch to using Verdana. Some have expressed disbelief at Ikea using a typeface which is usually seen as a text face on our computer screen, and declare Verdana too ugly for display use! So why the change? Having found this piece of news on Typophile, who point out that the company's founder is cheap, which probably motivated the switch as Ikea moves into more markets that require better language support from its corporate fonts. Verdana already has extensive multi-lingual support, and it's available on all the computers throughout the company at no additional cost. In my opinion, its a bit of a shame that Ikea have changed their typeface, as their own version of Futura was Ikea, a and they had built up their brand.

Before and After

There are a few people commenting on this change,

Designer James Puckett questioned the financial common sense of that decision, saying:
"I would argue that making such a dramatic change to the visual identity of such a valuable brand has potential costs that are much higher than the cost of extending Futura to cover more languages. If Ikea has to do one big ad campaign in the US and Europe to reinforce the new identity, they might spend more than they would have to extend Futura."

St. Thomas art history professor Craig Eliason tries to reason why Ikea have made the switch, and said that it might be to sync up with "web-immersed" young audiences, who "might feel subliminally quite at home in a store filled with Verdana."

We shall see in the future if this change has any effect on Ikea's sales and their brand identity!