IKEA Catalogs 1951-2021

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Age of IKEA and Design Evolution

  • Many were surprised that catalogs (and by extension IKEA) go back to the early 1950s and beyond.
  • Commenters note how 1960s furniture still looks “modern” and livable today, contrasting with some louder 80s styles and today’s white/black minimalism.
  • Several feel older collections had more color and “soul,” whereas current lines need accessories to avoid blandness.

Nostalgia for Physical Catalogs

  • Strong affection for the printed catalog: delivered yearly to homes, browsed for fun, used as inspiration, and remembered as a powerful brand-builder.
  • People compare IKEA catalogs to Argos, Sears, holiday, and museum/stock-photo catalogs as childhood “books of dreams.”
  • Some would happily pay for a yearly print edition as a cultural artifact; others think that’s mostly nostalgia and wouldn’t drive much modern revenue.

Print vs Web: Discovery and Production

  • Print catalogs are praised for serendipitous discovery, stable pagination, and spatial memory—things users feel websites don’t replicate.
  • Technically, automated typesetting from a product database is seen as feasible without AI, but expensive and undervalued.
  • Others note that nearly all the non-print work (photography, layout thinking) is already done for the website; distribution and staffing are the big extra costs.

Furniture Quality, Longevity, and Reissues

  • Some wonder how much 1950s IKEA furniture survives; one view is that early solid-wood pieces will outlast much of today’s flat-pack chipboard.
  • IKEA does occasionally reissue “classic” designs, but more complex joinery is said to be hard to offer cheaply at scale.
  • Debate over IKEA as “fast fashion for furniture”: cheaper construction vs adequate lifespan (often 10+ years) and strong second-hand market.

Copying vs Accessibility in Design

  • Several catalog “classics” are described as cheaper riffs on iconic Scandinavian designs with lower material and build quality.
  • One side criticizes this as unoriginal and aesthetically inferior; the other defends it as democratizing good design at a tiny fraction of luxury prices.
  • There’s tension between concerns about design/IP “theft” and admiration for engineering that delivers 70–80% of the experience for ~5% of the cost.

Catalogs as Cultural and Research Objects

  • Commenters enjoy scanning catalogs for the first appearances of computers, CD racks, flat screens, and the reappearance of record players and typewriters.
  • One detailed story traces a communist-era Polish dresser back to a wedding gift for IKEA’s founder, illustrating how catalogs can unlock obscure design histories.
  • Several see the full run of catalogs as an exceptional resource for studying design, technology, and social change over decades.

IKEA Website and Business Strategy

  • Multiple people criticize the online store as confusing: variants hidden, components in obscure PDFs, poor series navigation.
  • Some attribute this to an extremely change-averse culture and a desire to keep stores central, where impulse buying is strong.
  • Others argue the economics clearly favor digital over mass print: catalog production is expensive, distribution huge, and customers now expect dynamic, up-to-date online information.
  • High delivery fees and limited store density (e.g., in parts of the US) are mentioned as frictions that shape how people actually shop IKEA today.