Journal Entry #4 – IKEA’s magic

The IKEA Group, a Swedish company founded in 1943, is a multinational operator of a chain of stores for home furnishing and house-wares. It is the world largest furniture retailer, specializing in stylish  but inexpensive Scandinavian designed furniture. It has been hugely successful since then.

Everybody loves IKEA, their stores are bright and big, no pushy sales guys chasing people around, their products are good-looking, functional, and most of all, they are affordable. Every time I’ve put together an IKEA product, I got curious as I sifted through the bolts, screws, and the IKEA-only wrenches: how do they create these things?

The design process of a cushion, “FAMNIG”, is a classic IKEA story. Basically, it is a recycled product. The original materials were made for children’s toys. For safety concerns, this product had to be ceased. While still in production, recalling this line would cause a closure of its Indian facory and 600 emplyees would lose their jobs. After looking at the factory and materials on hand, IKEA’s designer, Anna Evferlund redesigned the product by turning it into a lovely cushion with arms. It immediately became a hit in IKEA stores.

This is a great example of how to change a bad situation into something good and innovative when it comes to design. It’s not easy combining good design and good function with the right quality, at an affordable price. Being creative is supposed to be significant for a designer, but when trying to create, keeping the budget in mind is also crucial. According to one of IKEA’s design principles – no waste. (A Scandinavian thought behavior?) It matches today’s call for environmentally friendly measures in its manufacturing process as well, which can even be another marketing emphasis for the products.

Something smart about IKEA’s design team is they know how to focus on the price reducing but not losing the quality and the modern looking of the products. They don’t do thing unnecessary, because that costs money, and IKEA customer don’t want to waste money,either, or they wouldn’t go to IKEA.  If I needed a stylish, European designed chair, but it might  cost me six thousand dollars from the high-end furniture stores, as a regular income customer, I’d rather go for a IKEA’s chair instead.

IKEA’s FAMNIG cushion design process reminds me what our guest speaker said in the class last week: Design depends largely on constraints, without constraints, it shall be called “art” , not “design”.The designer Anna is clever and bold, when she visited that factory in India, she did not see a almost-closed production line and almost-garbage toy parts. Oppositely, she saw raw materials could be re-design and made into new products. That is called “creative”.

The constraints for IKEA’s design teams are low-budget, stylish looking and functional, if there were no such limits, then IKEA would never get a chance to stand out as it is today, it would just be another furniture store where people can find products they can see everywhere else. Being simple and creative is IKEA’s solution for its contraints. It also reflect’s Maeda’s “simple” rules. To get more from less, that is IKEA’s magic.

Reference:

IKEA Group Corporate. (2004), IKEA design philosophy. Retrived October 27, 2008, from http://www.fanpop.com/external/7071