My favorite font is Verdana, because it’s aggressively readable.

Some of its notable traits:

• Distinct digit 1, capital I, and lowercase l.
• Tall x-height: lowercase letters are relatively tall.
• Wide letters overall.
• Open apertures.

To elaborate, apertures are the openings to partially enclosed spaces. For comparison, here’s Helvetica:

Helvetica is beautiful too: for example, its c and s have perfectly flat terminals, which look clean and neutral. But that’s also why Helvetica is unreadable at small sizes.

Meanwhile, Verdana has perfectly vertical terminals, making c and o, for example, super distinct. The gaps are nearly as wide as possible—why waste the space on the page?

That’s Verdana’s personality: it’s so functional!

IKEA

If there’s one IKEA product that embodies Verdana, it’s the Lack side table.

Yeah, the one you impulse-bought while leaving the store because it was so cheap. Yeah, it’s filled with cardboard. It’s the first table you put in an empty room, and the one you flip over for the lols.

And you love it anyway, because it still looks beautiful and gets the job done, and that’s what matters.

But when IKEA adopted Verdana in 2009, nerds howled.

Change

Before Verdana, IKEA used Futura.

Futura is beautiful too: it’s geometric and striking. It suits movie titles, whereas Verdana can look silly at large sizes.

So I understand the aversion: “you abandoned a classic, in favor of a web font, commissioned by Microsoft, designed for low-resolution screens‽”

But Verdana brought its own opinionated personality, which stood for values that many IKEA products share. Oddly, it fit.

Fast-forward to 2019, when IKEA abandoned Verdana for Noto Sans.

Now

Comparison by David Isaksson

Noto Sans was commissioned by Google, and based on Droid Sans, Android’s old default font.

Some traits I dislike:

• Misaligned terminals. Why do c and s start angled but end vertical? Make up your mind.
• Unnecessary wedges atop n and r. Distracting.
• Cut-off crossbar on f. It matches t, but it’s unnecessary there too.

But you know what? Noto Sans brings its own values: it aims to cover as many languages as possible, and it’s open.

If there’s one IKEA product that embodies Noto Sans, it’s Blåhaj, the plush shark.

Yes, the meme. With a subreddit. Which IKEA cast as a realtor in promo videos, with subtitles in Noto Sans.

By choosing Noto Sans, IKEA chooses multiculturalism. They’re embracing the Internet and the playful phenomena it enables.

And hey, Noto Sans actually does look more playful than Verdana. Oddly, it fits.

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IKEA catalogs:

• First in Futura (2009)
• Last in Verdana (2019)
• First in Noto Sans (2020)