The Verdana typeface family was designed specifically to address the challenges of on-screen display. Verdana was originally designed by world-renowned type designer Matthew Carter, and tuned for screen display by the leading TrueType hinting expert, Tom Rickner. The Verdana fonts are unique examples of type designed specifically for the computer screen.The Verdana family received a major update in 2011 as a collaboration between The Font Bureau, Monotype Imaging and Matthew Carter.

The original Verdana family included only four fonts: regular, italic, bold and bold italic. The new and expanded Verdana Pro family contains 20 fonts in total. The Verdana Pro and Verdana Pro Condensed families each contain 10 fonts: Light, Regular, Semibold, Bold and Black (each with matching italic styles).Verdana exhibits characteristics derived from the pixel rather than the pen, the brush or the chisel. The balance between straight, curve and diagonal were meticulously tuned to ensure that the pixel patterns at small sizes are pleasing, clear and legible. Commonly confused characters, such as the lowercase i j l, the uppercase I J L and the number 1, have been carefully drawn for maximum individuality - an important characteristic of fonts designed for on-screen use. Another reason for the legibility of the Verdana fonts on the screen is their generous width and spacing.

Designed by David Berlow and David Johnathan Ross of the Font Bureau, with typographic consultation by Matthew Carter, the new Verdana Pro includes a variety of advanced typographic features including true small capitals, ligatures, fractions, old style figures, lining tabular figures and lining proportional figures. An OpenType-savvy application is required to access these typographic features. The expanded weights and completely new condensed range of fonts provide designers with an expanded palette of typographic options for use in print and on-screen, in both small text sizes and headlines.