verdanagate
/vəɹˈdɑː.nəˌɡeɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A 2000s controversy around the change of the typeface from Futura to Verdana in IKEA's product catalogues.
Example Sentences
- "Like most of us here, I have been following the IKEA debacle over the switch from its proprietary Futura to the egalitarian Verdana as the corporate type family used from catalogs to store signage across the world. [see title]"
- "The New York Times joked that ‘it was perhaps the biggest controversy to ever come out of Sweden’. Wikipedia wasted no time in accepting a new page called Verdanagate. It became the hot topic – the fontroversy – in Graphic Tweets."
- "Swedish furniture retailer IKEA in 2009 changed its catalog font from Futura to Verdana, infuriating the design community and provoking a media storm, which became known as Verdanagate. Why? Because type matters."
- "Meanwhile, during ‘Verdanagate’, unbridled fury was unleashed after furniture store Ikea made what it thought was an innocuous switch from Futura to Verdana. Its customers picked up on it immediately and were chewing their little pencils in disgust."
Etymology
From Verdana + -gate.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /vəɹˈdɑː.nəˌɡeɪt/
- British English: /vəˈdɑː.nəˌɡeɪt/
Frequently Paired Words
fontroversy