Verdana

Verdana

Category	Sans-serif
Designer(s)	Matthew Carter
Foundry	Microsoft
Date released	1996

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group. The name "Verdana" is based on verdant (something green), and Ana (the name of Howlett's eldest daughter).^[1]

According to a study of online fonts by the Software Usability and Research Laboratory at Wichita State University, participants preferred Verdana to be the best overall font choice and it was also perceived as being among the most legible fonts.^[2]

Distinctive visual identifiable characteristics

Characteristics of the typeface are:

Lower case

• square dot over the letter i
• the lowercase j has a short bar on top that protrudes left
• double-story a

Upper case

• the capital Q's tail is centered under the figure
• the uppercase J has a slight hook
• there are two versions of uppercase R, one with a straight tail and one with a curved tail.
• the uppercase I has short bars on the top and bottom

Description

Bearing similarities to humanist sans-serif typefaces such as Frutiger, Verdana was designed to be readable at small sizes on a computer screen.^[3] The lack of serifs, large x-height, wide proportions, loose letter-spacing, large counters, and emphasized distinctions between similarly-shaped characters are chosen to increase legibility.

As an example of the attention given to 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.

Prevalence

Released in 1996, Verdana was bundled with subsequent versions of the Windows operating system, as well as their Office and Internet Explorer software on both Windows and Mac OS. Since at least Mac OS X 10.4 it is even bundled with the operating system itself.^[4] In addition, up until 2002^[5][6] it was available for download from Microsoft's web site as freeware (".exe" files for Microsoft Windows and in ".sit.hqx" archives for Mac OS X) under a proprietary license imposing some restrictions on usage and distribution, allowing it to be used by end users in any system supporting installation of "exe" or ".sit.hqx" files and supporting TrueType fonts.^[7] The downloadable files are still available legally from third-party web sites; see the External links section. However, these files include only old versions of Verdana and updated versions are not available as a freeware. Verdana is also one of the bundled book-reading fonts on the iPad.

According to one long-running survey, the availability of Verdana is 99.70% on Windows, 98.05% on computers running Mac OS, and 67.91% on free operating systems like Linux.^[8]

Variants

Verdana Ref is a custom version of Verdana for use with Microsoft Reference. It is used in Microsoft Bookshelf 2000, Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 99, Encarta Virtual Globe 99, Office 2000 Premium, Publisher 2000. MS Reference Sans Serif is a derivative of Verdana Ref with bold and italic fonts. This font family is included with Microsoft Encarta.

Tahoma is similar to Verdana but with tighter letterspacing. The Windows Mobile core font Nina^[9] is a more condensed version of Tahoma and Verdana.^[10]

Verdana Pro is a new and paid extension of Verdana.^[11]

Combining characters bug

In the past Verdana (v. 2.43) had an incorrect position for combining diacritical marks, causing them to display on the following character instead of the preceding. This made it unsuitable for Unicode-encoded text such as Cyrillic or Greek. This bug didn't usually reveal itself with Latin letters. This is because some font display engines substitute sequences of base character + combining character with a precomposed character glyph.^[12] This bug was subsequently fixed in the version issued with Windows Vista. It is also fixed in Verdana version 5.01 font on Windows XP by installing the European Union Expansion Font Update from Microsoft.^[13]

Awards

The typeface was nominated for the Best Of British Design Award on BBC Two's The Culture Show on January 26, 2006.

Usage

In 2008, during their merger with Northwest Airlines and resulting rebranding effort, Delta Airlines changed their official logo typeface from Times New Roman to Verdana.

IKEA caused furor in the graphic design world in 2009 when it changed the typeface used in its catalog 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[14] The Australian online daily news site Crikey also published an article on the controversy.^[16] The Guardian ran an article asking "Ikea is changing its font to Verdana – causing outrage among typomaniacs. Should the rest of us care? Absolutely."^[17] 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."^[18]

See also

• Core fonts for the Web

Notes

References

• "Interview with Matthew Carter, designer of Verdana and Georgia"
• "Interview with Virginia Howlett, mother of Verdana" Retrieved September 9, 2005
• Friedl, Friedrich, Nicolaus Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
• Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Verdana.

• Verdana font information (Microsoft typography)
• Verdana Ref font information (Microsoft typography)
• Channel Verdana (Microsoft typography)
• Downloadable version of Verdana (Core fonts for the Web)

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