Noto is considered the most universal typeface in existence. That’s because computers don’t necessarily recognize all glyphs, particularly in less common languages that have their own scripts. If your computer doesn’t recognize a letter, it will render the glyph as a box, which is called a Tofu in the typeface biz. Noto is short for “No Tofu,” providing visual representations of every letter of all of the 800 languages. It’s part of Google’s goal to make a font available for every language that is considered a script by Unicode, the consortium that creates standards for computers.
Given that in the last year Ikea opened its first store in India, where there are 22 national recognized regional languages, to go along with stores across Asia where conventional Western typefaces don’t work as well, it makes sense that the company wants to use a font that will support a broader range of languages.
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