Ikea has abandoned the 20th-century-esque Futura for a more computer screen-ish font, Verdana. Its 2010 catalogue featuring the new choice of type is supposedly meant to match the "simple, patched together and cost-effective" concept of the brand and the economic zeitgeist. Typography enthusiasts and professionals have apparently started petitions and Facebook pages against Ikea's type choice ("Do they want to look cheaper?!"). The notion of ideologies constituting typeface -- and the level of emotional response triggered by a shift of design paradigm -- tie in well with professor Anne Balsamo's lecture in the IMD Seminar this week when she spoke of design as an ethical endeavor and the relationship between innovation and uncertainty.
The anonymity of the Internet perhaps lends itself nicely to these almost visceral 'town hall-esque' reactions. But they also seem to be re-routed/misplaced/projected "fits of rage" that really either belong somewhere else or are directly -- and very unconsciously - linked to something else, something that has nothing to do with typefaces and sleek furniture at all. Something of the order of the unsayable which finds in these tangible changes in paradigm (the obviousness of a shift in the way something "looks") a safe home/stage. Can one talk about "digital surrogacy" here?
love the idea of digital surrogacy. i do think that digital 'objects' incite a kind of rampant displacement effect..... perhaps all those designers are actually outraged about the high degree to which their profession has been 'freelanced' and are (unconsciously) worried about health care more than typefaces...
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