Ikea destroys its identity
Ikea just recently announced that they have changed their typeface from a customized version of Futura to… Verdana?!?!? WHAT!?!? Ingvar Kamprad, how could you let this happen?
The first obvious question is..well..why would they do that? Ikea’s Ivana Hrdlickova says the main reason for the switch was to allow the company to use the same typeface in all countries (current Ikea typefaces do not contain Asian characters, for example). Being that Verdana was designed for the web, it also allows the company’s image to remain consistent online and in print. (via designhotels.com).
Ikea, honestly, I’m appalled and upset. You take a unique typeface that you owned, and was completely unique to you, and throw it away. Instead you replace it with a generic typeface that everyone uses. Hey Ivana, an excuse that its “easier to use” may have some validity to it, but its not worth it. You threw away part of their identity when you made the switch.
How? Because everything that is part of a brand, defines that brand. Ikea owned the modified Futura font. We didn’t associate it with anything else. When we saw that font, we knew it was Ikea, even if it didn’t blatantly say so. The emotions and thoughts that we had when viewing Ikea’s unique font identified itself as Ikea and no one else.
A great example of this in use is Snickers. Take away the name, and you still know what brand it is because of the typeface.
It’s a Snickers ad, but no had to tell you.
On the other side, Verdana is one of the most generic and used typefaces on the internet. It has no identity. Sure, it may be clean, but whatever thoughts and emotions derived from viewing it, you can’t own. I look at Verdana type and I see Target, Better Homes and Gardens, or some other magazine… and I don’t even know if they use Verdana. Point is, it has no identity. Verdana is so strong that there is no way that Ikea can “own” it and infuse its own brand into it. It will always be generic and without identity, and Ikea has decided to take away the unique identity of their typeface and replace it with something that is valueless.
What good is it to expand your brand into bigger markets if you destroy the brand along the way?
A shame, really.
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