How much attention do you pay to the fonts you use everyday? If you’re like most people, you probably have a few favorites, but don’t worry about it too much. Now how about this…how much attention do you pay to the fonts that other people use?

There is a little bit of an uproar on the internet recently over stylish-but-affordable furniture retailer Ikea switching the fonts they use in their advertising. For a long time, Ikea had used a customized version of Futura in most of their advertising. If you’ve ever seen an Ikea catalog or ad, maybe you can picture the big, bold prices accompanied by a brief description. All of their advertising had a consistent look which helped bolster their overall brand image. In addition, the use of a custom version of a classic font showed that Ikea really did pay attention to design.

So why the brouhaha over a simple font change? The problem, for most people, is that they switched to Verdana. Verdana is a font that many people are familiar with (even if they don’t realize it) because it is a free font distributed by Microsoft. It’s probably found on just about every computer in the universe. I’ll bet you they even have Verdana on the International Space Station. Except there it’s SPACE Verdana…that’s pretty sweet.

The font itself, isn’t terrible. It’s just sort of boring. It was designed very specifically for use on computer screens. Loose letterspacing and tall lower-case letters give Verdana an overall looser look. This is so that it’s easier to read on screen—letters don’t plug up or run too close together. And for that purpose, Verdana performs perfectly. It is a very good utilitarian design.

But to take this on-screen font and use it for print work shows, in many designers’ minds, a lack of respect for design. Complaints about the font range from finding the cheapest option available (free) to the easiest solution due to it being readily available around the world. Neither of these show the same sort of concern for design that Ikea shows with every single one of it’s nearly 10,000 items. Each silverware tray has a fun name, unique design—in short, each product fits in with the Ikea brand image. Using Verdana does not fit into the Ikea ethos.

Personally, I’m not freaking out about the font. I’ve seen print pages with the new font and while I don’t love it, it doesn’t ruin it for me. To be totally honest, I think that a lot of the uproar is because it’s a font created and distributed by Microsoft. Microsoft and the design community don’t generally play well together. It’s not the Mac-vs-PC thing, though, so much as it is that Microsoft tends to devalue professional design. By putting out products like MS Publisher with 15 zillion templates, they tell people that everybody can be their own designer.

The moral of this story is this: um…I don’t know. I have to admit that it would be pretty sweet, though, if 989 Design ever got so big that people got pissed off about the font I used on my site. I think I’ll make that one of my goals. Become huge, cause font uproar.

I began a conversation with a couple of people with Habitat for Humanity with regard to volunteering opportunities for members of Bay City After 6. As part of this conversation, I was asked if I would be willing to help Habitat out by shooting on a few days while they were working on their 2009 neighborhood revitalization project.

Most people are aware of Habitat’s main focus which is helping build and provide homes for people. Rather than focus all of their efforts on a single home, the neighborhood project gives Habitat the opportunity to work with a number of homes in a given area. The neighborhood they chose is in Bay City’s south end, near Rexer-Jablonski Park (named for two Bay City Police Officers killed in the line of duty). The neighborhood, while not being a bad area, is home to a number of houses in various states of disrepair.

Coordinating their efforts with Dow Chemical and other volunteer organizations, Habitat had the chance to make a real difference in this neighborhood.

I’m not sure exactly how many homes were worked on over the course of the eight-day project, but the work performed ranged from paint jobs, to gutter repair, porch replacement, landscaping and so forth.

One part of the project was to clean up the landscaping at Rexer-Jablonski Park, which served as a home base for the entire project.

As part of any Habitat project, the families whose homes are being worked on are required to help pitch in with the work. As you can see below, no family member was too small or too young to help out.

Okay…maybe some of them were too young and too small. The trio below did, however, help eat donuts. Everybody did their part.

I heard a great story from one of the people with Habitat. Family members were so filled with the goodwill the week created that many of them took time out to help out on other neighbors’ homes.

On the final day of the project, Mayor Charles M. Brunner came and said a few words about the difference that one full week of giving back to the community made. Not just to the homes themselves, but to the people who live in the neighborhood. And it showed in the number of families who chose to attend the closing ceremony and share their thanks and their stories.

As a great parting touch, each home that Habitat worked on was given two chairs for the front porch to encourage neighbors to sit out on their porch and spend some time talking to their neighbors. The best part is that the neighborhood has been using the chairs and is coming together as a real community. They’ve even planned a neighborhood picnic for the near future.

Habitat is already working on its 2010 neighborhood revitalization project, but there is a big challenge in front of them. This year, they were able to count on Dow Chemical providing a lot of volunteers. Next year, however, Dow Chemical will be working on a Habitat project in Midland. This means that to have the same sort of impact, Habitat will have to recruit a LOT of local volunteers. I am making it my personal mission to do whatever I can to help get the word out about this project.

I’ll be turning to friends, family members, clients and readers of this blog to take a few hours out of their week to pitch in and give back to some people who can use a helping hand. Watch this blog for details as they become available.

Author’s note: This is something I started to writing, but couldn’t finish, a few weeks ago. It isn’t quite as timely as I would like it to be, but I still wanted to put this out there. In the interest of full discloser, I do some work for the Saginaw Spirit, the Ontario Hockey League team which Garber  owns and was instrumental in bringing to Saginaw. Even though I do some work for the Spirit and we have exchanged hellos at a couple of games, we have never actually met and I’m sure he doesn’t know who I am.

Author’s Note #2: I did not take the above photo, I found it online and borrowed it.

Anybody living in the Tri-Cities can speak firsthand about the effects of the economic downturn and the rapidly eroding job market. It’s really been pretty brutal in this part of the state. Largely due to a decade-long trend of auto-industry job losses, Saginaw’s unemployment rate is over 20%, which is pretty insane.

We’ve all heard about the federal government’s bailout of the auto industry as well as the cash-for-clunkers program. Love these programs or not, they gave the auto manufacturers a chance to reorganize their business and rethink their business practices. As part of their reorganization, GM decided to eliminate many of its dealerships across the country, which does make some sense. There are markets in the nation with multiple dealerships within just a few miles of one another. The dealership closure was a big part of their plan as GM headed into bankruptcy court. What baffles me is what the criteria were for closing a dealership.

Garber Buick is an icon in Saginaw. Established in 1907 by the Garber family, Garber Buick had survived the Great Depression, two World Wars and several economic downturns throughout its 100-plus year history. At one point early in their history, the Garber family—who have long been very closely associated with GM—helped Buick make its payroll when they were short on cash. Currently, even with the economy in Saginaw being pretty rough for years and years, Garber Buick has remained one of Buick’s top-selling franchises. On top of all of that, they receive consistently very high marks in customer service. In short, Garber Buick is a model franchise.

So when the news came that GM was going to cut Garber Buick from its franchisee list, people in the area got up in arms. Buick was planning on cutting off one of the top performing franchises in the country. How does a move like that make even an ounce of sense? With decisions like this, it’s really easy to see how GM got themselves into their current predicament. Ouija boards could probably produce better results than GM’s bloated-and-out-of-touch management structure.

As I said, people around here got pretty fired up and started a letter-writing campaign to GM and I was one of the many who took the time to write. Even though I don’t know Dick Garber personally, I know a lot about him and the way he runs his business. it doesn’t take a genius to see that this was a stupid decision and I wanted to let GM management know what a bunch of disloyal jackasses they are (I didn’t actually use the word ‘jackasses’ but I did lecture them about loyalty). I don’t know how many people took the time to write, I only know that I was one of many.

Very often, when people see someone who has more than them get taken down a peg, they take a certain amount of satisfaction in it. This schadenfreude (isn’t that a great word?) is a kind of sick spectator sport—taking pleasure in the suffering of others. But that’s not what you saw in this case. What you saw was a community come together and instead of snickering behind his back, they rallied behind him. Even if the letters fell on deaf (and very dumb) ears at GM, the outpouring of support was something special and unique to the Tri-Cities. We do take care of each other and we showed our true colors here.

Congratulations to Dick Garber, all of the employees, friends and relatives who are stakeholders in the Garber organization, and to the community of Saginaw which could ill-afford another gut-punch like this.

Man, did I make a bad choice in starting a design business. I should have gone the route that Nick Swinmurn did and start an online shoe store instead.

Zappos.com was acquired by Amazon.com today for a deal worth around $850 million (actually, with the bump in Amazon stock, the deal is now worth closer to $900M).

Zappos is a great example of creating a brand and redefining an industry. According to their website, Swinmurn started the company after a frustrating search for shoes. One store would have the style, but not in his size. Another would have the right size, but in a different color. And searching online was not much better.

The idea was simple…sell lots of shoes. How do you get people to start buying shoes online? You carry lots of styles and product lines and you carry them in all sizes and colors. And to get over the hurdle of shipping costs, you ship the shoes for free. And from there an internet giant was born.

Congratulations, Zappos.

Burger King is no stranger to controversy in its advertising. Cripsin Porter + Bogusky have pushed the envelope a few times, but they actually are not responsible for the ad above.

This ad is for the BK Super Seven Incher, a new sandwich available in Singapore. The King used a Singapore firm to create the ad above, which uses clear sexual imagery and language (“Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled…”). I have to admit that I find the ad kind of funny, but I can also recognize why people are all up-in-arms over it.

With all of the hubbub over the ad, I think that we’re missing one thing—who in the hell needs a 7-inch Burger King hamburger? Isn’t that, like, 2000 calories or something? That’s just stupid.

As a bonus, here is one of BK’s previous close-to-the-egde ads, created by Montreal’s Bleublancrouge.