Web and Print and Verdana…Oh My!
I’m fascinated by the conversation and controversy surrounding the Ikea typeface change, ie; “Verdanagate” as BrandNew has called it. The furniture company had been using their bespoke face “Ikea Sans” (a tweaked version of Futura) in their catalogs, but recently switched to Verdana; a Microsoft (a curse word amongst the creative set) face designed for the screen.
Many people are scoffing. “A screen font being used for print?” some may cry, “How awful!” But, this corporate branding strategy is easy for me to understand. I regularly works with a very large international client, with a very large product portfolio (similarly, Ikea offers thousands of products). Companies like these have specific branding challenges, and consistency is king. Since many people across the globe manage communications, branding inconsistencies are likely to occur.
Our job as designers is to maintain consistency across all printed and web items. This means everything must be designed with the same type faces, weights, point sizes, colors, and illustrations in many pieces being distributed to many countries. In corporate branding, consistency is very important, and it takes dedication to maintain it.
Ikea offers both online and catalog shopping, so it makes sense for them to utilize a display font like Verdana on the website. If it’s a branding choice, the printed catalog must match. Ikea is a large, international company, and probably values consistency as much as my favorite client. I see the switch as an attempt to keep all communications, whether online in Japan, or printed in North America, consistent across the board.
As designers, we must embrace our existence in the two worlds of web and print, and realize that sometimes you have to make difficult choices to do so.
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