IKEA gets its customer base and target audience. They consistently produce online content that is designed to entertain as well as market their products. The latest offering is part research, part entertainment, and part marketing. IKEA has put 70 years’ worth of catalogs online for anyone to browse. The only caveat is that they are all in Swedish, so if you don’t speak the language, the descriptions will be pretty meaningless.

I have to say that the mobile or iOS version of the site is pulling off some really nice design. Full frame video with a transparent overlay video on the landing page. You don’t or at least I didn’t get that on the desktop in Chrome.

The site supports the IKEA Museum (yes there really is an IKEA Museum) and if you use the hamburger menu in the upper right you are taken to a minimalist landing page with additional information and activities. The nice thing is IKEA doesn’t attempt to drive traffic to the online store. This is truly for the fans of IKEA design and design principals.

One thing I do find interesting is the fact that the catalog layouts have remained fairly consistent across the decades, and quite a bit of the product line has as well. It’s a testament to a winning formula that IKEA has banked on for years.