Product Code Database
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft, with hand-font hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group and commissioned by Steve Ballmer. The name "Verdana" is derived from "" (green) and "Ana" (the name of Howlett's eldest daughter).
Bearing similarities to humanist sans-serif such as Frutiger, Verdana was designed to be readable at small sizes on the low-resolution of the period. Like many designs of this type, Verdana has a large x-height (tall lower-case characters), with wider proportions and looser letter-spacing than on print-orientated designs like Helvetica. The counters and apertures are wide, to keep strokes clearly separate from one another, and similarly shaped letters are designed to appear clearly different to increase legibility for body text. The bold weight is thicker than would be normal with fonts for print use, suiting the limitations of onscreen display. Carter has described spacing as an area he particularly worked on during the design process. (2025). 9781568984278, Princeton Architectural. ISBN 9781568984278
| i | square dot |
| j | serif protruding left |
| a | double story |
| Q | tail is centered |
| J | serif protruding left |
| I | two serifs on the top and bottom |
As an example of the approach of making similar characters easily distinguishable, the digit 1 (one) in Verdana was given a horizontal base and a hook in the upper left to distinguish it from lowercase l (L) and uppercase I (i). This is similar to the digit "1" found in Morris Fuller Benton's sans-serif typefaces News Gothic and Franklin Gothic.
According to a 2013 survey, the availability of Verdana was 99.90% on Windows, 99.26% on Mac OS, and 70.02% on free operating systems like Linux. Code Style: Most common fonts for Windows, Mac and Linux, full font survey results. .
According to a study of online fonts by the Software Usability and Research Laboratory at Wichita State University, participants preferred Verdana as the best overall font choice, and it was also perceived as being among the most legible fonts. However, Microsoft's font manager, Bill Hill, wrote that "with its large x-height and very generous spacing, it never felt comfortable as an eBook font". He noted that Microsoft had commissioned an alternative version of the pre-existing typefaces Berling and Frutiger for its Microsoft Reader e-book product. Despite this, Verdana was initially used as one of the bundled book-reading fonts on the iPad before an update in 2011.
Tahoma is similar to Verdana but with tighter letter spacing. The Windows Mobile core font Nina is a more condensed version of Tahoma and Verdana.
In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface used in IKEA Catalogue from Futura to Verdana, expressing a desire to unify its branding between print and web media. The controversy has been attributed to the perception of Verdana as a symbol of homogeneity in popular typography. Time magazine and the Associated Press ran articles on the controversy including a brief interview with an IKEA representative, focusing on the opinions of typographers and designers. Design and advertising industry-focused publications such as Business Week joined the fray of online posts. The branding critic blog Brand New was one of those using the Verdanagate name. The Australian online daily news site Crikey also published an article on the controversy. The Guardian ran an article asking "Ikea is changing its font to Verdana—causing outrage among typomaniacs. Should the rest of us care? Absolutely." The New York Times said the change to Verdana "is so offensive to many because it seems like a slap at the principles of design by a company that has been hailed for its adherence to them."
Carter addressed this controversy during an interview in 2013:
Ever since there was that big ruckus about the IKEA catalog changing from Futura to Verdana, which I had nothing to do with and didn’t even know about, people ask me about that everywhere I go. I give a talk about something historical and then at the end someone will get up and say: "I started a petition to go back to Futura. You’re a villain!" You get blamed for something you had nothing to do with.
There's a strange misunderstanding. A friendly guy came up to me at a conference recently and said: I signed that petition to go back to Futura. So I asked: what caused you to do that? And he said, well, Verdana is a screen font. You mustn’t use it in print. So I said: OK, well, so you open the IKEA catalog, it’s set in Verdana, with the big prices and everything… how do you tell it’s a screen font? What is it about Verdana that says: this is a screen font? He had no idea. He just knew it because he’d been told. There are many people who make judgments without really understanding what the typographic issues are. Students are interesting—they’ll say things to me like: my professor told me I cannot use Verdana and Georgia in print because they’re screen fonts, but I tried it and it looks perfectly all right. And I can only say: Thank you! Go ahead!
In 2019, with its logo refresh, IKEA again changed its corporate typeface from Verdana to a customized version of Noto Sans under the name Noto IKEA.
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