Recently, Ikea unveiled its new catalogue, and designers began complaining almost immediately. To laymen, the problem is probably almost invisible: Ikea has changed its official font from Futura–with its tony design pedigree–to Verdana.

So what? Verdana was designed as an on-screen font for Microsoft. And while it’s serviceable in that context, it was never meant for print. Designers would liken that move to driving a Honda Civic around a racetrack–sure, the Civic might be a fine family car, but it doesn’t have the elegant engineering required to race in the main event. Ikea, with its history of design excellence, is supposed to know better. Time and NPR have already reported on the controversy, and there’s now an online petition demanding Ikea reverse course. Grrrrrrr.

Maybe all the hubbub strikes you as weird, but fonts have always inspired passions. Here are five more examples from history:

Germans argued for literally hundreds of years over which font was more German: Antiqua, or Fraktur. Antiqua was descended from old Latin typefaces; Fraktur was invented in the 17th century, and was used in Germany’s first newspapers. Otto von Bismark wouldn’t read anything that wasn’t printed in Fraktur; on the other side, Goethe, Nietzsche and Jakob Grimm (of the brothers Grimm) all decried it, in favor of Antiqua. Hitler eventually settled the dispute: The Nazi’s banned Fraktur due to its (untrue) “Jewish” origins. (Nazi buffoonery, as always, was on full display; the dictate against Fraktur was printed in Fraktur.) The Allies then resuscitated the font, in the money printed by their interim government.