Making sense of art and design industries

by sematikotemo

People often recognize design as exclusive and expensive products. They are partly right, because some design is handmade and published with few specimens by acknowledged designers. On the other side, does it really have to be like that? What is the term design all about? To narrow it down even further we can separate the design industry into different industries. In this post I will talk about the furniture industry, or more precisely IKEA.

As one of the biggest companies within the furniture industry, IKEA focuses on making design available for everyone. As Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, said:

“Why are people making amazing products that only a few people can buy? It must to be possible to offer good design and function at low prices”.

IKEA’s approach to design is what they call “democratic design”. It simply means design for everyone. IKEA works hard on how to make their products more user-friendly. They cooperates with famous designers, events and even students. Karin Gustavsson, IKEA’s Creative Leader, thinks it is important to include creative people from all over the world and different firms. In that way they can offer more variety in their collection and adapt to an even larger customer group. They also cooperates with external designers to get even more innovative.

On their homesite they say that within 2030 7/10 people will live in cities. With that in their mind they focus on smart solutions. In apartments it is less space, and therefore more important with clever solutions to make the most use of the space.

IKEA have one main question; “Is there a better way?”.  They constantly work on how to make the whole process from beginning to end more efficient. Within 2020 they want to be a zero-emission company. To reach that goal they have to think innovative all the time.

IKEA is well known for taking corporate responsibility. When the customers are choosing between different companies this might be an important factor. Competitors vary a lot from country to country. In USA they have to compete with companies like Amazon, which have 6 times higher revenue. Meanwhile here in Norway the closest competitor is Jula, with a fourth of the revenue. This means IKEA is leading quite a bit in the norwegian industry. Instead of pushing the competitors away IKEA wants to launch an online platform for online furniture-shopping where they want to invite their competitors.

Since IKEA first arrived in the furniture industry, around 60 years ago, they have worked on how to match suppliers possibilities and customer needs. IKEA have succeeded very well in that area. They have even won the Red Dot award several times for their acknowledged designs. Do you think IKEA is going the right way by democratising design?