Understanding ideals

The swedish furniture-giant Ikea is one of the best known companies in the world. A household brand name, the company employs over 100.000 people across the globe and sells furniture for over 25 billion dollars every year.

The company was founded in Sweden in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad. He got the name from using his own initials (IK) and the names of the village where he grew up, called Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd (EA). During its 70 year existence on the global market, Ikea has grown to become the worlds most successful furniture retailer. The idea that separated them from their competitors, and still do, is the idea of selling self-assemblied, flatpacked furniture. This idea was formed in the 1950’s when a employee removed the legs from a table to fit in a car. Ever since, Ikea has developed the DIY-approach and has managed to turn it into a focused and effective brand strategy.

Logo

The IKEA logo is a simple typeface logo that uses a bold serif font. The logo uses a custom font called «Ikea Sans». This clean, geometric typeface is based on the popular Futura font, often used in graphic design. Futura was designed in 1927 and has a modern, professional, clean look that is very visually appealing. The Ikea logo has bold and sleek lettering which emphasizes the company’s modern image. The use of yellow and blue in the logo, represent the colors of the swedish flag. The colors provide a big contrast, which helps the logo make a visual impact. The blue color represents professionalism, trust and brilliance. The yellow color symbolizes happiness, energy and imagination. The typeface is placed inside a stretched yellow oval shape, which helps accentuate the typeface.

This image is from Ikeas store in Sandnes, Norway. Here you can see that the logo is not identical as the logo I already talked about, but the typeface remains the same. The colors are reversed so that the color of the building can be blue. If you google Ikea stores, you can see that this store design is consistent all over the world. It speaks to the simplicity of the Ikea brand, using just yellow text on a blue wall. Simple and clean. The bulding is also very simple, almost looking like a giant storage container, representing the items of value inside.

Brand ideal

So what ideals does Ikea strive for? I would say that Ikea represent Swedish simplicity. Ikea offers quality products at low, affordable prices.

Ikea was also founded in an era when Sweden was becoming a prototype example of a egalitarian society, where both rich and poor had the same opportunities. This ideal fits well with Ikeas vision. The main ideal of Ikea is to improve peoples lives.

They also focus on customer loyalty and providing good service. Customers who go to Ikea stores, know they will receive quality products very cheaply. Ikea has built a loyal customer base over the years. They especially cater to families with kids, by having a playing area the kids can have fun, and they provide food in their restaurants so the families don’t have to leave the store to eat dinner.

The main target of Ikea is the general public. People who would like to decorate their homes with well designed, yet affordable furniture. The low prices gives freedom, as it can be easily replaced without breaking the bank.

The Ikea brand is tied closely to simplicity. Quality in design and materials despite low prices is also an important aspect of Ikeas brand profile. The company also focus on sustainability and design, but the low pricing is the most central aspect of their business.

Store profile

When you enter an Ikea store, you know what to expect. All over the world, their stores carry the same items, are generally constructed the same way. The stores are consistent in their use of colors, typography and other design elements. This familiarity and consistency makes shopping at any of their stores seem familiar and trustworthy. So when going to an Ikea store abroad, you know exactly what you are going to get. This is a good strategy, because it gives the customers a feeling of familiarity and safety. It helps building a loyal customer base.

All areas throughout the Ikea store are labeled and easily read. They use big bold signs to categorize different areas of the store. They also use a neutral and clean font for all labels, menus, maps and product details. Inside the store, they use the color blue to indicate important information, such as maps.

The interesting thing about Ikea stores is that you walk in a «herd» with other people going in the same direction. The stores always have a set route, which is straight forward, going through different product category areas. This is done by having arrows on the ground, which direct the customer to the next area, and is the easiest way to the checkout. It is easy to get lost when you break the path, because Ikea stores are generally big and many areas look similar. Also an interesting choice is that there are no windows inside the main areas of the store. This is perhaps so you lose sense of time, so you stay in the store for longer periods of time.

After you walk inside the store for some time, you get a very clear feeling of the company’s ideals. First, everything is laid out and easy to examine. This is a very tactile approach, as you can touch every chair or cupboard if you want. This «everything-at-once» approach may look somewhat disorganized and not very elegant, but it works because it is very easy to visually scan for things you are interested in.

The size of the product areas in the store also gives a sense of freedom and openness, as you can see very far ahead.

Another key element that the stores do is visualization. Ikea is the master of this, and uses it very effectively. Instead of thinking how something would look in your living room or bedroom, Ikea has already done it for you. In some of areas in the store, they have installations in which they arrange furniture. These «home modules» help customers to see how the furniture look inside a room. This makes it simple to choose a certain product. They have a number of these modules inside the store, and they really make an impact. They emphasize the design and quality of the furniture and products.

The image above just looks like a photo of an ordinary living room. But it is a photo of one of the home modules that Ikea has in their stores. It can give customers design inspiration. This approach relies heavily on visual information, and needs to be clean and simple.

When it comes to typography, every sign and label uses a simple, clean and somewhat neutral font. This makes it easy to read, and it also doesn’t imbue the words with any personality or ambigous meanings. The fact that every item that Ikea sells has a name, is often parodied and ridiculed. But I think its a good way of remembering the item name, and gives inanimate objects more personality and makes them more desirable.

Example of good readability and typographic hierarchy. The bright orange color is only used for these signs, and it makes them very easy to spot.

Other uses of different desing elements:

Something that makes Ikea unique, is the fact that customers actually walk into a warehouse to collect the items you want to buy before they go to the checkout. I have never seen this in any other store, and it makes you remember the store very vividly. It doesn’t use bold color palettes and custom made designer shelves or anything like that. Its just a plain old warehouse, warts and all. This is very interesting, because a warehouse usually gives of a cold, industrial feeling. But here it works, it feels natural and a integral part of Ikeas store profile.

Customer experience ideal

What separates Ikea from other furniture retailers is that in an Ikea store, customers can walk inside the store and select the products they want. After you find an item you want to buy, you check the label, which tells you where to find the item in the downstairs warehouse. You then collect your items in flat-pack form from the warehouse. The reason Ikea can provide cheap yet high-quality furniture is mainly because of this self service.

In order to give as many people as possible a better day to day, Ikea connects with the customer as a partner, for example by giving the customer the opportunity to assemble the furniture themselves. This way they can offer their products at a low price affordable for everyone.

Ikea provides a large range of different products. They give the customer a low price, high quality wares and products with a sleek, simple design. The restaurant and food court provides customers with freedom and contributes to an overall friendly, efficient and customer experience.

The Ikea restaurant is somewhat unique in the retail world. It provides an affordable dinner to families and others who want to spend a lot of time browsing the Ikea store. This personal freedom is an important part of the company’s ideals. It gives the customer options.

Stray observation: The color scheme is different in the bed-area. It changes to a darker color, perhaps to simulate the enviroment of a night.