As evidenced on my visit to Croydon today; Ikea have started to migrate from the beautiful Futura (top) to the downright nasty Verdana (below) for their corporate communications.
This is a shame, for me one of the small (only?) joys in shopping in Ikea has been the elegant signage* and consistent typography that seemed to neatly sum up a paired down Swedish aesthetic.
Not for much longer.
Verdana is an ugly font. It was specifically designed by Microsoft for use on computer displays. It’s wide proportions, loose letter-spacing and large counters may aid legibility on screen, but it looks dreadful in print and signage.
Oh well. Let’s hope they don’t change Billy bookcases.
*They do also use a kind of brush-script font for “special offers” – also horrible.