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 and commissioned by Steve Ballmer.

[3] Bearing similarities to humanist sans-serif typefaces such as Frutiger, Verdana was designed to be readable at small sizes on the low-resolution computer screens of the period.

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.

[7] In addition, up until 2002[8][9] 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) 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.

The expanded family was designed for organisations which had made extensive use of Verdana due to its availability but desired additional versions for greater flexibility.

[17] 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.

Carter's typeface appeared on a list which included Concorde, Mini, Jaguar E-Type, Aston Martin DB5, Supermarine Spitfire, World Wide Web, London tube map, AEC Routemaster bus and the K2 telephone box.

In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface used in its catalog from Futura to Verdana, expressing a desire to unify its branding between print and web media.

[23] 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.

"[26] 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.

"[27] 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.

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.