It continues to baffle me how a field like typography have to continually ward off accusations of “snobbishness” and overall “doesn’t-matter-ness.” Those who are unfamiliar, uneducated and uninterested in design should leave it up to those who do it for a living to make the choices, and stop acting like “it looks good enough” is a legitament critique. But maybe “good enough” is an over-arching lifestyle theme I’m just unfamiliar with. Experts should be allowed to argue and discuss the finer, more subtle points of their field without provoking attacks by novices or and trolls.

I don’t “get” NASCAR, curling, or knitting, but I don’t have a problem accepting the fact that I don’t know everything.

Great job catching this on Flickr.

It continues to baffle me how a field like typography have to continually ward off accusations of “snobbishness” and overall “doesn’t-matter-ness.” Those who are unfamiliar, uneducated and uninterested in design should leave it up to those who do it for a living to make the choices, and stop acting like “it looks good enough” is a legitament critique. But maybe “good enough” is an over-arching lifestyle theme I’m just unfamiliar with. Experts should be allowed to argue and discuss the finer, more subtle points of their field without provoking attacks by novices or and trolls.

I don’t “get” NASCAR, curling, or knitting, but I don’t have a problem accepting the fact that I don’t know everything.

Great job catching this on Flickr.

It continues to baffle me how a field like typography have to continually ward off accusations of “snobbishness” and overall “doesn’t-matter-ness.” Those who are unfamiliar, uneducated and uninterested in design should leave it up to those who do it for a living to make the choices, and stop acting like “it looks good enough” is a legitament critique. But maybe “good enough” is an over-arching lifestyle theme I’m just unfamiliar with. Experts should be allowed to argue and discuss the finer, more subtle points of their field without provoking attacks by novices or and trolls.

I don’t “get” NASCAR, curling, or knitting, but I don’t have a problem accepting the fact that I don’t know everything.

Great job catching this on Flickr.

MURDOCH has it right!!!

Seriously? Seriously. You’re disgusted by a choice of font in a furniture catalog? Why not sit back and think about how that sounds for a second

I don’t know if the primary reason is anti-Microsoft-ism, as StopCapShouting suggests, but it’s definitely bound up with designer’s perceived exclusivity against mere mortals. Designers use Macs, regular people use PCs. Designers use Helvetica, regular people use Arial. Designers hate Verdana, regular people think Verdana is fine even for large posters.

Ironically, shortformblog complains about a font, but then loudly complains about a nonexistent use of a font. “Beyond [Verdana] being used for the Web, is STRONGLY associated with Microsoft’s OS interface.”

That’s funny, especially with the all-caps “STRONGLY”, because Verdana is NOT used as the UI font in Microsoft’s OS or applications. And that includes Internet Explorer. For its user interfaces, Microsoft used MS Sans Serif from about 1994 to 1998, then Tahoma from about 1998 to 2006, and now it uses Segoe UI. The years are approximate, because the switchover took place at different times for different Microsoft applications.

Verdana really is popular because of its use in web pages. And no surprise, because on-screen reading is what it was designed for. I don’t even like Verdana that much, but this outburst from designers is just emblematic of what’s wrong with the profession. They’re just unconnected to regular people, who are supposed to be their audience. Same thing that’s worng with architects — they focus on impressing each other, instead of improving regular people’s lives.

(For some real fun, see the documentary “Helvetica.” You end up wanting to slap some sense into many of the designers being interviewed. Or, I suppose, tick them off by using Arial instead of Helvetica.)

I look at the interface and think I’m looking at Internet Explorer. And (considering I don’t like IE) that looks very bad on the company. That’s why Verdana sucks as a font – it’s so strongly associated with one setting that to take it out of that setting makes it look like a mistake.

It’s less anti-Microsoft-ism as it is criticism of weak branding practices. If they wanted to have something more across-the-board, they could have easily gone with Helvetica, which, unlike Verdana, was actually designed to run at 200-point type along with 12-point type.

And keep in mind that you’re generally not looking at the catalog online. There’s a reason why IKEA has a separate Web site where you can buy stuff. It’s because looking at a catalog is awkward. They’re designing that catalog for print.

I’d love to see Matthew Carter weigh in on this issue.