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- JBF
Stop IKEA going Verdana!
- jimbojones0
too late
- sigg0
yes. please everyone voice your opinions and concerns, spend your time and join together to stop the wars in iraq and afghanistan and help curb our dependencies on oil and help, er wait... uh lets all STOP IKEA GOING VERDANA!
wtf
- Meeklo0
what is the big deal?
Verdana is a GREAT font for ikea.Is economic, it doesn't really stand out, its popular, basic, and common people use it on their own homes...
JUST LIKE WITH THEIR FURNITURE
:)
- +1thoughtandtheory
- so was futura. why throw out all that brand equity?baseline_shift
- raf0
Good to see Janne you found your purpose!
- Meeklo0
so was futura. why throw out all that brand equity?
You might think its throwing it out, but all brands reach a point where they require visual changes in order to renovate themselves and stay current. If coke had, like you put it, keep their brand equity, it will still look like this to this day
- Meeklo0
And I'm not saying that all changes are good, we've been discussing rebranding of popular marks here almost weekly for years, and more often than not, the majority of designers choose the older version.
But even when we don't like the visual change, we create a topic and talk about the brand, that means that their objective was achieved, even when we don't like it, they managed to stay current. :)
- identity0
im in - fight the good fight
- Meeklo0
and suddenly a meaningless hate thread with no substance has become an open discussion about design, let's keep it going!
- jimbojones0
There's a difference in updating an identity and completely throwing it away. IKEA relied heavily on their heavy Futura, in the ads in the catalogues, you didn't have to see the logo to know it's them. Now you see Verdana, and every el cheapo furniture warehouse uses Verdana because they want something more modern than Times and something less overused than Arial so they go with the totally hip Verdana which looks like dog shit in print.
- I think you can come up with a better argument than thisMeeklo
- and by the way, I consider ikea cheapo furniture.. maybe that's whyMeeklo
- cheap price-wise, but their catalogues and ads didn't look cheap, also because of good typejimbojones
- identity0
I dont claim to know the reasoning here - but did they maybe want something that could be used across platforms? (print/web) - I know there are ways to get around web-type compliances for typefaces, but maybe they just couldn't be bothered? I've had a FEW clients that knew enough design knowledge to be dangerous - they told me that the new brand/ID I was designing for them "needed to be Web Compliant as well - so they could have a consistant brand" – I wanted to shoot myself...
Thoughts?
- thoughts not NECESSARILY about shooting myself... ...I know where you guys are going with this...identity
- valid pointMeeklo
- Had the same a while ago. Ended up with a horrible nasty logo that I just wanted to put to sleep.shitehawke
- jimbojones0
The CEO saw that they used different faces online and in print, IKOMM was in shock but they had to obey.
- Ah - yeah, i figured it was something like this...identity
- we work for stupid people mostly. even if the client is smart...jimbojones
- amen to thatMeeklo
- Meeklo0
^
you still have their colors, their photography, their paper stock, their large sized typographic messages... I dont think "their are throwing all that away" if they are just switching to a different face.. but that's me.Also, I consider IKEA to be cheapo furniture, why? cause I can afford it. Because their motto is, you put it together and we all save on shipping costs, good furniture is made of noble materials, has a huge mark up for having a designer's name on it, and it cost a lot of money to ship, but people that buy have enough money to not care about that... I think..
- jimbojones0
Their colors pretty much only worked as visual identifier with the huge heavy type. The type block. You can't make a type block with Verdana, it's too thin. They ran many ads that were text only, instantly recognizable because of their type. Well, maybe I was the only one who instantly recognized them. In any case, it is not only about the SWITCH to a different face, it is about the FACE they've switched to. I don't think even M. Carter would recommend it for print use.
- Lubalin never intended for A Garde to be used as a face, and look what happenedMeeklo
- yeah, and most of it lookes like shitjimbojones
- DrBombay0
Brand Equity? I guarantee you .01% of their customers even notice this and even less will give a shit. They want cheap furniture.
- Coffeemaker0
IKEA IS THE MICROSOFT OF THE FURNITURE MARKET.
SO GOOD ON THEM FOR USING VERDANA.
now fuck off and your facebook.
- Coffeemaker0
I FUCKING HATE THE WORD BRAND.
now go back and fix those fucking banners, for fucks sake.
- ********0
i would better join the STOP IKEA group
- identity0
some of your responses are a bit frightening. "people won't notice, so who gives a shit" – well, frankly, I do... Not necessarily about IKEA, but the pervasive thought that "it's JUST type".
So, perhaps we could change a baseball team's logo to Verdana? Maybe we could change the Guggenhiem's brand/way-finding to Rockwell? Appropriateness be damned - it won't stop fans from coming to games or visitors coming to the museum...
We're designers - it's our fucking job to give a shit...
- yes but we're the only ones who give a shit at all. we went too far.Coffeemaker
- I give a shit, I just don't think its as drastic as you do. a cheapo face for a cheapo furniture, das allMeeklo
- raf0
The interesting part is that we're going to see the impact it has, or whether it has.
Remember how Tropicana sales plunged 20% after a rebranding fail?
- Ikea is a destination store with virtually no competition. There will be no result attributed to the type change.DrBombay
- i heard people talking about this in the supermarket. they hate the new font, now they don't drink it anymore..Coffeemaker
- Orange juice has 10 competitors right next to it on store shelves. Different animal.DrBombay
- hahaha coffeemaker.DrBombay