4 ms·

Agreed, this debate may sound silly to some, but for those of us that are passionate about typography, making this sort of change is akin to the movie studio go

by bprater 17y ago

Agreed, this debate may sound silly to some, but for those of us that are passionate about typography, making this sort of change is akin to the movie studio going in and recutting Pulp Fiction to "make it better" or having the staff at the Louvre adding a little something to the Mona List to "make it better".

anigbrowl 17y ago
It's true that a film titled with Trajan shouldn't be retitled with Action Jackson (stereotypically 'classic' and 'hip, funny' fonts). And after perusing the 2010 catalog, I agree it looks considerably uglier in type terms, and that this is a mistake for a firm whose brand is partially built around the democratization of good design. Then again, perhaps the lowering of aesthetic expectations will help to reduce the mild disappointment that accompanies appreciation of (most) Ikea products as ersatz and disposable substitutes for a level of aesthetic and manufacturing quality most of us can only aspire to. Verdana, then, may be regarded as a more truthful form of typographical communication, and signals a shift away from a petty-bourgeois dialectical proposition towards a more proletarian [You may purchase the rest of this article for $59.95]
endtime 17y ago
Isn't it more like an annual Seattle screening of Pulp Fiction switching to, I dunno, Die Hard? Perhaps a change for the worse, but one you are rarely (if ever) actually affected by, and one the majority of people who are affected by it wouldn't care about? Movies are a tough example because a LOT more people care about movies than fonts -- so perhaps many people would care about that switch -- but you get the idea.
dagw 17y ago
No this is more like the movie studios making a new, not quite as cool, movie poster for Pulp Fiction for the re-release of the unchanged movie. The IKEA catalog is not their product, its their advertising. It's not like their catalog has any effect of the product (their furniture), much like a movie poster has no actual effect of the quality of the movie.

by bprater 17y ago

anigbrowl 17y ago

It's true that a film titled with Trajan shouldn't be retitled with Action Jackson (stereotypically 'classic' and 'hip, funny' fonts). And after perusing the 2010 catalog, I agree it looks considerably uglier in type terms, and that this is a mistake for a firm whose brand is partially built around the democratization of good design. Then again, perhaps the lowering of aesthetic expectations will help to reduce the mild disappointment that accompanies appreciation of (most) Ikea products as ersatz and disposable substitutes for a level of aesthetic and manufacturing quality most of us can only aspire to. Verdana, then, may be regarded as a more truthful form of typographical communication, and signals a shift away from a petty-bourgeois dialectical proposition towards a more proletarian [You may purchase the rest of this article for $59.95]

endtime 17y ago

Isn't it more like an annual Seattle screening of Pulp Fiction switching to, I dunno, Die Hard? Perhaps a change for the worse, but one you are rarely (if ever) actually affected by, and one the majority of people who are affected by it wouldn't care about? Movies are a tough example because a LOT more people care about movies than fonts -- so perhaps many people would care about that switch -- but you get the idea.

dagw 17y ago

No this is more like the movie studios making a new, not quite as cool, movie poster for Pulp Fiction for the re-release of the unchanged movie. The IKEA catalog is not their product, its their advertising. It's not like their catalog has any effect of the product (their furniture), much like a movie poster has no actual effect of the quality of the movie.