The IKEA Catalogue (US spelling: IKEA Catalog; Swedish: Ikea-katalogen) was a catalogue published annually by the Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA. First published in Swedish in 1951, [1] the catalogue was considered to be the main marketing tool of the company and, as of 2004, consumed 70% of its annual marketing budget. [2] Approximately 208 million copies of the catalogue were printed in fiscal year 2013, more than double the number of Bibles expected to be printed in the same period. [3]
The first IKEA catalogue was published in 1951 in Sweden. It had 68 pages and 285,000 copies were distributed in Southern Sweden. [4] At its peak in 2016, 200 million copies of the catalogue were distributed, in 69 different versions and 32 languages, to more than 50 countries. [5]
In December 2020, IKEA announced that, after a 70-year run, they would end publication of the catalogue, with the 2021 edition being the final edition. [4]
Containing over 300 pages and about 12,000 products, it was distributed by mail, in stores and online. [6] Each edition of the catalogue takes about 10 months to develop from concept to final product. [3] Many different versions of the catalogue were created to reflect regional differences in product ranges as well as cultural differences. For example, photographs in the China edition may depict a smaller kitchen than the US edition. [7]
Most of the catalogue was produced by IKEA Communications AB in Älmhult, Sweden, the site of the original IKEA store and where IKEA Communications operates the largest photo studio in northern Europe (8,000 square meters in size). [1] As of 2012, the studio employed 285 photographers, carpenters, interior designers and other personnel working full-time on photo shoots. [3]
In 2017, IKEA worked with five paper suppliers and 31 printers around the world to produce the catalogue each year. [7] The catalogue itself was printed on chlorine-free paper of 10-15% post-consumer waste. [8]
According to Canadian broadcaster CTV, "IKEA's publications have developed an almost cult-like following online. Readers have found all kinds of strange tidbits, including mysterious cat pictures, apparent Mickey Mouse references and weird books wedged into the many shelves that clutter the catalogues." [9]
In December 2020, IKEA announced that they would be cease publication of both the print and digital versions of the catalogue, with the 2021 edition (released in 2020) being the final edition. The company said the catalogue had become less important as IKEA embraced new ways of connecting with customers. 40 million copies of the 2021 edition were printed. [4]
The company began experimenting with computer-generated imagery in 2005 by placing a single computer-rendered image of a wooden chair in the 2006 edition of the catalogue. According to Anneli Sjögren, head of photography at IKEA, customers did not notice that the chair was computer-generated. [3] In 2010, the first entirely computer-generated room was created for the catalogue. [10] By the 2013 edition, 12% of imagery for the IKEA catalogue, brochures and website was computer-generated. [3] As of 2014, 75% of product images (i.e. white background images) and 35% of non-product images across all IKEA communications are fully computer-generated. [10]
Augmented reality was introduced in the 2013 edition of the catalogue. "X-ray" views through furniture compartments, videos, how-to guides and other interactive content could be accessed by scanning a symbol on the catalogue with a mobile device. [11] The 2014 catalogue contains an augmented reality app that projects an item into a real-time photograph image of the user's room. The augmented reality app also provides an indication of the scale of IKEA objects in relation to the user's living environment. [12]
In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface used in its catalogue from Futura to Verdana, expressing a desire to unify its branding between print and web media. The change drew considerable media attention. [13] [14] [15] The controversy has been attributed to the perception of Verdana as a symbol of homogeneity in popular typography. [16] In 2019, the company switched from Verdana to IKEA Noto Sans as its official corporate typeface, including its catalogue. The typeface is a modified version of Google’s open-source font Noto Sans. [17]
In October 2012, IKEA was criticised for removing women from photos in the Saudi Arabian version of the 2013 catalogue. [18] [19]
IKEA also publishes and sells a regular style magazine, titled IKEA Family Live in thirteen languages which supplements the catalogue. An English language edition for the United Kingdom was launched February 2007 with a subscription of over 500,000. [20]
Inter IKEA Systems B.V., trading as IKEA, is a multinational conglomerate, founded in Sweden but now headquartered in the Netherlands, that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008. The brand name is an acronym of founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials; Elmtaryd, the family farm where Kamprad was born; and the nearby village of Agunnaryd, Kamprad's hometown in Småland.
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group and commissioned by Steve Ballmer. The name "Verdana" is derived from "verdant" (green) and "Ana".
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque, § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist, and § Other or mixed.
A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated 3D content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, or destructive. As such, it is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum.
Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used typefaces.
Arial is a sans-serif typeface in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and many PostScript 3 printers. In Office 2007, Arial was replaced by Calibri as the default typeface in PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
Comic Sans MS is a sans-serif typeface designed by Vincent Connare and released in 1994 by Microsoft Corporation. It is a non-connecting script inspired by comic book lettering, intended for use in cartoon speech bubbles, as well as in other casual environments, such as informal documents and children's materials.
A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printing, is a screen font.
Catalog or catalogue may refer to:
Georgia is a serif typeface designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter and hinted by Thomas Rickner for Microsoft. It was intended as a serif typeface that would appear elegant but legible when printed small or on low-resolution screens. The typeface is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century and was based on designs for a print typeface on which Carter was working when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller the following year. The typeface's name referred to a tabloid headline, "Alien heads found in Georgia."
Segoe is a typeface, or family of fonts, that is best known for its use by Microsoft. The company uses Segoe in its online and printed marketing materials, including recent logos for a number of products. Additionally, the Segoe UI font sub-family is used by numerous Microsoft applications, and may be installed by applications. It was adopted as Microsoft's default operating system font, and is also used on Outlook.com, Microsoft's web-based email service. On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled its new corporate logo typeset in Segoe, replacing the logo it had used for the previous 25 years.
Font hinting, also known as instructing, is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing clear, legible text. It can be accompanied by antialiasing and subpixel rendering for further clarity.
Meiryo is a Japanese sans-serif gothic typeface. Microsoft bundled Meiryo with Office Mac 2008 as part of the standard install, and it replaces MS Gothic as the default system font on Japanese systems beginning with Windows Vista.
Ascender Corporation was a digital typeface foundry and software development company in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. It was founded in 2004 by a team of software developers, typographers, and people previously involved in developing fonts used widely in computers, inkjet printers, phones, and other digital technology devices. On December 8, 2010, Ascender Corp. was acquired by Monotype Imaging.
Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern Software, Inc. was a case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California regarding the copyrightability of digitized typefaces. The case is notable since typeface designs in general are not protected under United States copyright law, as determined in Eltra Corp. v. Ringer. Since that case, the United States Copyright Office has published policy decisions acknowledging the registration of computer programs that generate typefaces. In this case, the court held that Adobe's Utopia font was protectable under copyright and Southern Software, Inc.'s Veracity font was substantially similar and infringing.
Noto is a free font family comprising over 100 individual computer fonts, which are together designed to cover all the scripts encoded in the Unicode standard. As of November 2024, Noto covers around 1,000 languages and 162 writing systems. As of October 2016, Noto fonts cover all 93 scripts defined in Unicode version 6.1, although fewer than 30,000 of the nearly 75,000 CJK unified ideographs in version 6.0 are covered. In total, Noto fonts cover over 77,000 characters, which is around half of the 149,186 characters defined in Unicode 15.0.
Commercial augmented reality (CAR) describes augmented reality (AR) applications that support various B2B (Business-to-Business) and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) commercial activities, particularly for the retail industry. The use of CAR started in 2010 with virtual dressing rooms for E-commerce.
(in Norwegian) at the IKEA Museum
(in Error: {{in lang}}: unrecognized language code: dk) at the IKEA Museum