IKEA, which has been adorned for their functional and to the point design in everything they do, have been on every designers lips the last couple of days. The reason for this is that, apparently, IKEA has anounced that they will change their fonts, a dervation from the two classics Futura and Century Schoolbook to, brace yourself, Verdana. The reason for the change from the typeface that they used for over 50 years, is that they wanted a typeface that they could use in both print and web. IKEAs Head of information, Ivana Hrdlickova, also mentions the use of Verdana in other alphabets i.e. in asian countries, was a key point for the change.

Futura, designed by Paul Renner in the 1920’s, with its clean and simple geometric forms perfectly described IKEA and scandinavian design as a functional, “no-fuss” design. While on the other hand you have Verdana, which was made for Microsoft in 1996 purely for the use on web, especially in small point sizes, compromising everything for the limitations of web based design.

There’s definitely something wrong when a design icon like IKEA choose the easy way out (i.e Verdana) instead of aesthetics and good design (i.e Futura). And that has stirred up emotions in the world of design. Over 4000 people have signed the “Ikea, please get rid of Verdana” petition, which you can sign here. And the topic even made the most read in Time Magazine, with their article “The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana”, and it was heavily discussed on the Typophile forum.