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IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

ikeamuseum.com

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Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#91

Post by bryanrasmussen »

zeroq wrote: post #71
galfarragem wrote: post #28

I'd happily pay for the traditional physical IKEA yearly catalog. I suspect that if they sold it in-store for a few euros (€2?) just to cover printing costs, many people would buy it. It's more than a product list, it’s a cultural artifact, offering a window into the aesthetics, values, and lifestyle of its time. I still keep their old catalogs, and I’m not alone.

Fun fact - Getty Images used to send physical albums of their stock photo collections. It was some 25 years ago, I was doing freelance for an ad agency, and while visiting the office and waiting for my appointment to finalize some paperwork I was browsing through these. When my guy finally showed up to pick me up he asked if I liked them and said - you can get these for free, just write them. So I did and they mailed…

I mean obviously the color space of most images you find online is still RGB although that is slowly changing, but until it changes print versions will probably be higher quality.

The colors afforded by your phone or camera probably have richer colors than is afforded by images you download of the place online, but may also be dependent on what you're doing and your camera settings.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#92

Post by instagraham »

Love how the 2004 catalogue captures that iMac G3 colour scheme and vibe (even though, by then, you'd already gotten the more iPod looking G4).

When we try to remember how the design of a year "looks", it's surprisingly hard to document everything you were exposed to. I've been trying to find this particular graphics card demo animations I'd seen in computer stores in Saudi Arabia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I remember being induced into a right proper trance by some of them but I don't remember enough detail to find out what it was.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#93

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

WillAdams wrote: post #8
lysace wrote: post #4

I hadn't noticed the lack of printed IKEA catalogs until now. Seems like they stopped making them in 2021. They used to just appear in the mailbox. (I'm in Sweden. They were literally sent to every household in the country every year.) I'm a fan of print layout catalogs over database driven web sites. Can't AI help with making an appealing paginated layout of a product database? I'd be happy with a 1 GB .pdf. Edit: S…

No need for AI --- I used to work up automated typesetting systems for a previous employer --- feed in the database as a properly tagged XML file, provide all the graphics in a folder, and a couple of typesetting runs later, one had a fully paginated PDF w/ ToC and Index. The problem is, no one wants to pay for this since no value is seen in such a paginated view --- even if AI could create such a typesetting routine…

Paginated view is stable. Scrollable is not. This hinders spatial memory immensely, but goes unnoticed.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#95

Post by petepete »

atombender wrote: post #43
ahartmetz wrote: post #18

Crazy how few of their decades old designs look "wrong" today. Their combination of high quality design, low price, and (depending on price...) workable to good build quality is pretty unique.

Mind you, a lot of their designs are cheap knock-offs of contemporary designs. * The POÄNG chair is a copy of Alvar Aalto's 406. * Nakamura's earlier POEM copied both the 406 and a chair by Bruno Mathsson. * FROSTA (now discontinued) is a copy of Aalto's Stool 60. * KROMVIK copied Bruno Mathsson's Ulla bed frame. * BORE copied Mathsson's Karin chair. And so on. Ironically, some of these also have become classics of t…

> they are genuinely worse in terms of construction

A 406 costs ×20 more (£1600 vs £80).

Does the 406 have cleaner lines? Yes.

Is it comfier? The 406 doesn't have a cushioned seat so, maybe or maybe not.

Will it last longer? Probably. But the IKEA one comes with a 10 year warranty and unless you treat it badly it'll probably last far longer than that.

Hard to argue that the IKEA POÄNG isn't great value for the people who have other priorities.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#97

Post by hooskerdu »

zeroq wrote: post #71
galfarragem wrote: post #28

I'd happily pay for the traditional physical IKEA yearly catalog. I suspect that if they sold it in-store for a few euros (€2?) just to cover printing costs, many people would buy it. It's more than a product list, it’s a cultural artifact, offering a window into the aesthetics, values, and lifestyle of its time. I still keep their old catalogs, and I’m not alone.

Fun fact - Getty Images used to send physical albums of their stock photo collections. It was some 25 years ago, I was doing freelance for an ad agency, and while visiting the office and waiting for my appointment to finalize some paperwork I was browsing through these. When my guy finally showed up to pick me up he asked if I liked them and said - you can get these for free, just write them. So I did and they mailed…

Not saying this is you, but I’m reminded of a story of a woman who took a ton of photos of vacations - all the sights. But upon the death of her husband realized she never captured the people with her

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#98

Post by silvestrov »

unwind wrote: post #79
silvestrov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: why can't they show all sizes of a product jusst like when choosing t-shirt size on a normal shop? e.g. this dresser is available in many sizes but you wouldn't know from the product page: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/storklinta-3-drawer-chest-white... At best you can then search for "STORKLINTA" but the result list has the other sizes mixed with all sorts of other products such as beds: https://www.ikea.com/us…

It's not super hard to back up (using the "bread crumbs" on the page you linked), to "Dressers & chests of drawers", pop down the "Series" input selector, and pick STORKLINTA. That gets you [1] which I hope shows all the dressers of that name. [1]: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/chests-of-drawers-10451/?filt...

I didn't see the filter because it is only shown for wide windows (over 1250px wide) or when clicking the "All filters" button and is then at the bottom of the list.

The list even isn't sorted and looks like a SELECT without order from a database.

It is really odd they don't have a (sub) category page for each of the series.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#99

Post by silvestrov »

makeitdouble wrote: post #64
silvestrov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: why can't they show all sizes of a product jusst like when choosing t-shirt size on a normal shop? e.g. this dresser is available in many sizes but you wouldn't know from the product page: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/storklinta-3-drawer-chest-white... At best you can then search for "STORKLINTA" but the result list has the other sizes mixed with all sorts of other products such as beds: https://www.ikea.com/us…

Not to explain away Ikea's byzantine system, a difference in size usually comes with a difference in use and environment. While a T-shirt has the same purpose in S M or L, a table isn't the same if it's lower smaller than 50cm or longer than 1.5m, or lower than 60cm or higher than 70cm. In a standard shop you'd call that a night stand, or a coffee table, or a kids' table or living room's low table etc. If you think o…

I agree that for tables there can be a difference in use but when IKEA has a dresser series named "HEMNES bedroom series" then that argument kind of goes out of the window.

Re: IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

#100

Post by bluebarbet »

petepete wrote: post #95
atombender wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind you, a lot of their designs are cheap knock-offs of contemporary designs. * The POÄNG chair is a copy of Alvar Aalto's 406. * Nakamura's earlier POEM copied both the 406 and a chair by Bruno Mathsson. * FROSTA (now discontinued) is a copy of Aalto's Stool 60. * KROMVIK copied Bruno Mathsson's Ulla bed frame. * BORE copied Mathsson's Karin chair. And so on. Ironically, some of these also have become classics of t…

> they are genuinely worse in terms of construction A 406 costs ×20 more (£1600 vs £80). Does the 406 have cleaner lines? Yes. Is it comfier? The 406 doesn't have a cushioned seat so, maybe or maybe not. Will it last longer? Probably. But the IKEA one comes with a 10 year warranty and unless you treat it badly it'll probably last far longer than that. Hard to argue that the IKEA POÄNG isn't great value for the people…

Well said. My Poäng has been abused (by students) for years. It's still almost as good as new. And so very, very comfortable.
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