Ikea catalog 1951-2020
December 8, 2020 6:43 AM   Subscribe

The Ikea catalog is dead. Citing the rise of digital media over print, among other factors, Ikea says their 2020 print catalog will be its last annual edition. But with their browsable archive of seventy years of interior design, long live the Ikea catalog.
posted by ardgedee (47 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
via this post on Mltshp.
posted by ardgedee at 6:46 AM on December 8, 2020


I said to Mabel, I said, "Once they switch from Futura to Verdana, I give 'em ten, twelve years tops."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:55 AM on December 8, 2020 [21 favorites]


Good. Now if we can get ULINE to stop sending their giant catalogs every few months.
posted by terrapin at 6:59 AM on December 8, 2020 [15 favorites]


God yes. Once I realized the family were racist monsters, that ULINE catalog became quite annoying. But I suppose at least it was costing them money to have me receive it and toss it in the recycling bin.
posted by aramaic at 7:36 AM on December 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


lolz ikea giant tax thieves
posted by lalochezia at 7:45 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Okay, leaving all else aside, I think I'd like to live in some of the more contemporary rooms of the 1984 catalogue. They have these simply terrific Ikea pine modern vitrines and some awning stripe roman blinds that are just revelatory. And the windowpane check duvet covers!

It's totally a fantasy, for me, of a world of interiors but without interiority - I could step into the catalog and know completeness, fullness and an end to suffering. No introspection, no doubts, just inhabiting a full and complete world.
posted by Frowner at 7:58 AM on December 8, 2020 [15 favorites]


The IKEA catalog has been so ubiquitous in Sweden that people will put a notice on their mailbox to the delivery person that says in effect "no advertisements please, except the IKEA catalog". Before the founder died my in-house dad joke about going to IKEA for an extension cord or votive candles was "paying the Kamprad tax".
posted by St. Oops at 8:00 AM on December 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


◖+ ◗ = ●
posted by Gelatin at 8:02 AM on December 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


This makes me so sad! The IKEA website is possibly the worst way to interact with IKEA - few of their items look their best on a blank white background, there's little in the way of accidental inspiration, and most of what you find isn't even available online. Going to the stores is inspirational but also a madhouse - going in just to shop without a plan and a list is suicide*. The catalog bridged that for me - you'd look at it for design ideas as much as products, figure out what you were looking for before going in, and have a better sense in your own mind about what something would look and feel like, so if you kicked the tires on something and it felt less solid than it did in your imagination, you could walk away from it rather than grab it and hope for the best. I understand why they're doing this - especially when they feel they need to create so many versions of the catalog to cater to so many different cultural differences, but this feels like a real loss to me.


* At our home we call bruises that show up unexpectedly "IKEA bruises," because pretty much without exception, every time I come back from IKEA I find something bruised that I have no memory of bumping into anything.
posted by Mchelly at 8:13 AM on December 8, 2020 [22 favorites]


> going in just to shop without a plan and a list is suicide

My wife and I have never stepped into an IKEA without a list of things we are expressly travelling to the store to buy; if we see something else along the way and decide to buy that too, fine, but we have a strict No Aimless Browsing rule so we can avoid having one of those Ikea Couples' Meltdowns we've witnessed (the worst of which was a guy yelling "I DON'T EVEN GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE, LET'S JUST GO HOME!" as we walked by them). One time she suggested going back for something and I immediately had a visceral reaction, like "ALERT ALERT FOLLOW THE ARROWS NEVER GO BACKWARDS ALERT ALERT."
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:21 AM on December 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


>"paying the Kamprad tax".
Well, I guess *someone* has to pay taxes, and it sure as heck isn't Kamprad or Ikea.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 8:24 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


When I was still working in tech as a product manager for the Professional Print Products group at Adobe, my boss, who came from the actual pre-press & printing side of the business (books, primarily) explained to me how the Ikea catalog was one of the largest printing jobs in the world. All of the different localized and regional versions of the book were created out of a single set of master layouts and photos. (Choice of color for certain products was also something localized, I learned.) It was a year round job for the people in involved, mostly in Sweden. (The printing itself was actually done in a variety of locations.) So while this is a win for the environment (trees spared, trash created, carbon consumed, etc), it is the end of something singular, as well as the probable livelihood for a bunch of print professionals who worked on it.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 8:30 AM on December 8, 2020 [16 favorites]


This makes me so sad! The IKEA website is possibly the worst way to interact with IKEA

Their showroom is literally a maze, so that's impressive really.
posted by pwnguin at 9:10 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I actually don't mind aimless IKEA browsing, so long as I'm by myself. But it's best to go when you are off in the middle of the week, weekend IKEA is a different beast. The hardest part is not buying all the adorable stuffed animals.
posted by emjaybee at 9:48 AM on December 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


I can survive without the IKEA catalog. When they stop printing the McMaster-Carr catalog, well, that's when the rending of garments will commence.
posted by phooky at 9:54 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am selfishly bummed by this decision because there are items I know exist at IKEA that I cannot find using the search function on the website. And I don’t have any faith that the website will get any better. Maybe two years ago the catalog shifted from a catalog to more of a magazine thing that featured products but also to had stories about stuff that I didn’t care about. I really just wanted to know what the hell they were selling. And now I will never fully know because website.

Several years ago IKEA renamed its Expedit bookshelf Kallex, and the only way I could tell I had not lost my mind was by comparing the new catalog with the old catalog. My guess is that it got renamed because the company could not figure out a way of squeezing suppliers to keep the price the same or to lower it.

Insert Clever Name Here is right about this being the end of something. There are so many endings all the time. This is just one more. Honestly, anything IKEA does to make it harder to buy stuff is probably good for me as well as for the planet.
posted by Bella Donna at 10:00 AM on December 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


> most of what you find isn't even available online

This is what I'm most worried about. I've had multiple experiences where an item is in the print catalog and the store but not the website. Our nearest Ikea is over 100 miles away and there's nothing like planning a four hour trip to get a thing which might not be there. Fortunately the store staff will answer phonecalls about specific items -- it's a lot easier when I already have the inventory number thanks to the print catalog -- but that's a pretty huge time sink compared to using their website myself.

I have a few suspicions about why they're ditching the print catalog, but another one that comes to mind as I write this is that this will release Ikea from the obligation of being locked to prices and inventory a year in advance. Expect prices and product releases to be a lot more frequent and fluid starting next summer.
posted by ardgedee at 10:00 AM on December 8, 2020 [8 favorites]


But there was never a reason why IKEA couldn't put the top price in the catalog and then have something continually "on sale" for the span of a year, right? That's Kohl's entire business model right there.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:26 AM on December 8, 2020


As an independent office supplies dealer, we used the big general line retail catalog from our primary distributor, with our imprint on the cover. A couple years ago, the distributor gave up on trying to have anything close to relevant consumer pricing printed, because it would be outdated long before the catalog got into the customer's hands. Their solution was to just print full retail with a line through it on everything. Sure, you got product details, but it was absolutely useless for having any idea what something might cost. Retail price on a case of paper was something stupid like $240.00, which we sold for about $35. So, we just referred everyone to our website for pricing, which always had the most current pricing shown. The days of annual or even quarterly price updates are long gone; we were getting price updates every other week.
posted by xedrik at 10:51 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I could step into the catalog and know completeness, fullness and an end to suffering.

A former girlfriend and I once visited a furniture store filled with late 40s-early 50s "modern" style furniture, arranged appropriately in little areas like separate rooms but without any actual walls. The moment we walked in her face almost literally went 😍. She told me that she'd buy the entire store lock stock and barrel if she were able, leave everything exactly as it was and live there for the rest of her life. I have to say, she (and of course the store owner) had very good taste.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:23 AM on December 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


The IKEA store maze is for amateurs. There are copious shortcuts (you don't think the floor staff always go the long way do you?). Ask a staff member the quickest way from A to B or watch where they go.
posted by epo at 11:26 AM on December 8, 2020


with their browsable archive of seventy years of interior design

That's amazing. So many items that furnished and decorated my environment as a kid, as a student, as a young adult, as a less young adult - so many discontinued models with private personal memories attached that normally I might only catch glimpses of when looking through old photos - archived in one public, and theoretically permanent, place.

I went and looked up the first Ikea things my parents bought, in the '80s. They were there! (And, disorientingly, so many of the series names I know by heart today were already there too. It's kind of amazing how little has changed in terms of the designs and types of items available. Though maybe the expectation of observing drastic change in the furniture world over the course of a mere 30-odd years is itself kind of amazing; so much has changed in the world at large that it's hard to notice all the things that have stayed the same until they stare out at you from old catalogues.)

Ikea is such a weird phenomenon.
posted by trig at 12:14 PM on December 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


I guess this will save them a bunch of money, plus there's the environmental benefits, but I will miss that ol' catalog for many of the same reasons others here have already noted. It makes for much better browsing than the website, even though the way they organized the thing wasn't as good as it used to be.

Does anyone know if there's currently a way to order the print catalog by mail? The website just has a PDF version, and I can't see myself stepping into an IKEA anytime soon.
posted by May Kasahara at 12:26 PM on December 8, 2020


This makes me so sad! The IKEA website is possibly the worst way to interact with IKEA

I concur. Their crap delivery and public transit inaccessible store locations mostly already managed drive me away but this will be the final dowel pin in the Kofflin.
posted by srboisvert at 12:37 PM on December 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


There are copious shortcuts (you don't think the floor staff always go the long way do you?). Ask a staff member the quickest way from A to B or watch where they go.

My nearest Ikea also has a map which show the shortcuts, there's definitely one at the entrance, and a few more at locations where you might want to branch off. They aren't big maps but they are accurate.
posted by plonkee at 1:05 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Counter-proposal from an Ignoramus.
Why not web-ify the catalog instead?
It seems pretty clear that the printing and distribution of dead tree catalogs (especially in so many languages) is an expense to cut in the 21st century.
But it also seems clear that the catalog, visually, is the preferred user interface? That people have been finding what they want via the print catalog, then fighting through the online site in order to buy it, for a decade?
So make the catalog the website.
Lay off 2/3 of the web design team, and give the print layout team their jobs. The other 1/3 spend their time making the description blurbs and pricing info boxes into dynamic fields that can change by language&location?
When your browser directs you to Ikea.de, you get German product descriptions and up to the minute pricing in Euros; Ikea.mx in Spanish and Pesos; everything else is the same stock photography and layout from a 'universal' catalog design?
Feel free to beat me up on why that's ridiculous.
posted by bartleby at 1:22 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Also, something something nostalgia, something something circling product numbers then reading them out over the phone, something something I miss flipping through paper catalogs while sitting on the toilet, now we look at twitter on the shitter instead and everyone's life is worse.
posted by bartleby at 1:23 PM on December 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


Maybe it would still be around if it included an index.
posted by krisjohn at 1:44 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


There are copious shortcuts (you don't think the floor staff always go the long way do you?).

The front door is for suckers. Get the aisle-shelf numbers ahead of time, walk in through the exit (COVID modification: say you're going to customer service), and grab your flatpacks. Done.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:05 PM on December 8, 2020 [10 favorites]


Online catalog is fine and all but they put stuff in it that I can put into my cart and then when I go to check out, it just.... errors out on me.

They know where I live. They know where they ship to. They list it in my local currency. So why do they let me add stuff to my cart that can't be shipped where I live?

(Gnomes. My kid wants one of the $10 IKEA holiday gnomes. I can't buy one for him.)
posted by caution live frogs at 2:20 PM on December 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


walk in through the exit

In my local store at least, that also works if you want to go straight to the housewares/lighting/kitchen section without trudging upstairs, following the meandering shortcuts through all the furniture, and trudging downstairs again. In through the exit, past the flatpack storage, and there you are. Of course you'll be going against the general flow of people who went the other way, but unless it's a really busy day that shouldn't be a problem.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:09 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Why not web-ify the catalog instead

This is what a number of MRO (maintenance repair and operations - Mcmaster-Carr was one mentioned in the thread [I also used to work there]) catalogs have done. You can either search the website normally or you can view the e-catalog.

I think that is a good practice as many of the standard website interfaces are not good with helping people pick between similar options.
posted by nolnacs at 3:30 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Restoration Hardware is the worst if you’re a professional, as my wife is. Those things are doorstops and there are several of them. That being said I haven’t seen one recently so maybe as part of their recent reimagining they phased out catalogs.
posted by misterpatrick at 3:44 PM on December 8, 2020


I'm sad about the death of catalogues in general. As a kid I loved catalogues as an escape into a little world, whether it was the world of homewares, hardwares, game birds, or what have you. They're also great for craft projects and scrapbooks.
Thank you for the catalogue archive! What a fantastic resource.
posted by Rora at 4:31 PM on December 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yeah, the on-line ikea experience is really shitty for some reason. And it's been that way for a long time which says one or more someones at a high level want to keep it that way. Maybe now w/ the print catalog gone they'll reconsider.

Also: several years ago I was shopping for some office furniture and my local ikea didn't have the metal & glass doors for a cabinet I wanted. This is when I discovered that while they can check stock at other stores, they can't arrange for items to be transferred. So I had to drive 20 miles each way to another nearby ikea to get my doors. Rather...idiomatic.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 5:30 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


(pre-cov-era Ikea store visit game-plan: eat-meatballs, wander-maze, buy lightbulbs/spoons/plushtoys)
posted by ovvl at 5:41 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


my life is measured in random ikea plush toys
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:42 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the on-line ikea experience is really shitty for some reason. And it's been that way for a long time which says one or more someones at a high level want to keep it that way.

I'm pretty sure there were multiple articles like 10 years ago on Apartment Therapy or wherever wherein various high up Ikea muckity-mucks openly admitted that they weren't very interested in internet sales and were only grudgingly creating a website at all.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:18 PM on December 8, 2020


...high up Ikea muckity-mucks openly admitted that they weren't very interested in internet sales and were only grudgingly creating a website at all.

So that's where we got: good website has to equal e-commerce solution? Too bad! Other experiences are/were possible. It will be interesting to see what Ikea does now that the printed catalog is gone.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:13 PM on December 8, 2020


I guess they do have an "Inspirations" section on the website now that looks catalogue-like, but it's nothing like the experience of just sitting down and browsing a complete experience. Which is a bother, because the Ikea designers can be damn good at their work - I was just at ours after a three-week lockdown and they used it to redecorate the fake room displays in completely inspired ways.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:13 AM on December 9, 2020


That said, one of the great things about the Ikea phone app is that it supports AR, so you can choose the furniture you're interested in and see how it will fit in the space that you have free for it. Assuming that your house has empty spaces that you're trying to fill with furniture, not just spaces you're trying to fill with better furniture.
posted by ambrosen at 5:00 AM on December 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


May Kasahara, I have two IKEA catalogs from this year and would be happy to mail you one if you like. The only catch is that it is in Swedish. If that is not an ideal solution, perhaps another MeFite who lives closer to you has a spare.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:27 AM on December 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Looking at the 1984 catalogue, I notice a whole lot of "twin beds pushed together instead of double beds" pictures. This was how my parents had their beds - bad for those who like sleeping entwined, good for those who like radically different mattress firmnesses. I had always assumed that this was just some old-fashioned thing they did, because I grew up in an old-fashioned home, but it's gratifying to see that it seems to have been relatively common somewhere fairly recently.
posted by Frowner at 9:37 AM on December 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


OMG Frowner, when I lived in Sweden as a student and visited people, I was always astonished that everyone had a twin bed that got pushed together. That is no longer the case here but it is common. Once I was visiting a semi-famous musician who had to go open the door because his girlfriend had decided to move back in and needed help with her bed. That seemed so weird at the time but as now, as an Oldster with sleep problems, it makes a lot more sense to me. If you have your own bed it's a lot harder for another person to wake you up.

Another oddity: Here in Sweden, you can get mattresses that are 80, 90, 100 (maybe), 110, and 120 centimetres wide as well as the (more common for couples) 140, 160 and 180-cm wide models. I hate twin beds with a fiery distain because I always knock my elbows against a wall or something when I turn over at night. If a twin is your jam, no worries, but I have never liked them. I prefer a 140 but when I moved into this studio, there was literally not room for one downstairs. So a sweet relative gave me a 120-mattress (an old one, from IKEA, naturally) and it works great.

Not everyone here buys their mattresses at IKEA but OMG so many people do. Blocket.se, the Swedish analog (heh) of Craigslist, is filled with people selling or donating their IKEA mattresses. There are also people trying to sell their fancy mattresses at sky-high prices but honestly, most folks stick to IKEA.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:17 AM on December 9, 2020


The IKEA Catalog was the best thing ever to read on the potty.

Sad to see it go.
posted by Cornball at 9:52 PM on December 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


I will miss the aspirational minimalism of the Ikea catalog. All teh rooms always looked so cool but I know myself am too much a stressed out mess to live in a place like that and just be. But it was nice to flip through and imagine life in such a place where everything has a place.
posted by WeekendJen at 4:01 AM on December 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Can confirm the whole two-twin-beds-pushed-together phenomenon in Sweden. Was super common like 20 years ago when I moved here, less-so now. Also, separate comforters/duvets or whatever you want to call them on single larger beds. Add to Bella Donna's mattress size list the odd size mattresses I built in to my daughter's rooms: 105 cm and in the country house bunkbed: 70 cm.
posted by St. Oops at 4:41 AM on December 11, 2020


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