IKEA rebranding feedback

Student Forum
#1

Hey, I’m a current graphic design student. As part of my assessment I have 2 comprehensives and was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on some questions relating to the IKEA logo designs.

Questions are as follows:

  1. What does the logo represent to you?

  2. Is it legible? Is it easy to read and understand?

  3. What is the core product/service undertaken by the business?

  4. What do you think about the company when you see this? (List a range of key adjectives for them to choose from ie innovative, stylish)

  5. Does it stand out and catch your eye?

    questionnaire logos2_page-0001
    questionnaire logos2_page-0001705×455 62.2 KB

    logo for questionaire_page-0001
    logo for questionaire_page-0001793×481 60.7 KB

  6. Does it feel genuine?

  7. Are there any technical, legal or budgetary issues that need to be considered?

Logo designs:
Leanne_Jones_E1053688_326629_02_Design02_page-0001
IKEA furniture logo_page-0001

#3

Many major brands make extensive changes to their logo over time. Sometimes they switch to something completely different and make quite a fuss of it. But IKEA has had essentially the same fundamental expression in its logo since the 1960s. This is nicely in line with the general attitude at IKEA – to hurry slowly, be cost-conscious and preserve the origins.

Think about the brand.
Design for the brand.

You’re so far off the identity of the brand that there’s literally no point in continuing.
Start over.

You can do better.

Research first.
Draw with pencil and paper first.
Try to do 20-100 iterations of the logo.

Only go to the computer with 10 solid ideas.

Only finesse 5 of those ideas

Then only submit 3 of those ideas.

What’s the tagline?
Design for Life
or
design for real living

started as a tiny mail order company in rural Sweden

design and comfort to people all over the world

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#4

I posted an answer previously that was a bit snippy. Apologies. It was more aimed at the unoriginal brief you’ve been given, than you. Search this forum for ‘IKEA’. You are not the first to have asked this question.

#5

While everything about IKEA is “stripped down to bare minimum” (including what they think passes for assembly instructions LOL) what you’ve presented here is overly complicated, with unnecessary details.
In the infamous words of my GD professor,
“Do Over”

#6

What logo are you referring to? Your two versions of the IKEA logo? If so, why did you post all the other company logos? I’ll ignore the other logos and concentrate on your two IKEA ideas.

Despite students periodically posting this same project on the forum, I think it’s a less-than-great student assignment. IKEA is a huge, worldwide brand with years of brand equity worth billions. Because of this, IKEA would never change its logo without a compelling billion-dollar/euro reason. They might make small refinements to keep it fresh or address specific problems, but the brand’s essence would need to stay the same.

Was this explained in the assignment? Did the instructor explain IKEA’s hypothetical need for a new logo? If not, without understanding the reasons necessitating the change, there’s no way to judge whether the new logo design successfully met those challenges.

If IKEA were a blank slate and starting up from scratch, I would avoid anything like their current logo. However, if I were involved in a redesign of the current logo, the brand equity I mentioned would almost certainly cause me to make only those changes to the logo that the problem necessitating the change required.

In other words, a logo redesign or modification for IKEA is a complex problem. Did the instructor explain these and other considerations that would always be paramount in a logo redesign for a company like IKEA? If so, great, but you’ve not supplied us with any of those considerations, so how can we judge the success of your two logos?

You’ve created two variations of IKEA’s logo that adhere to their existing visual brand. This must have been intentional. Was this part of the assignment, or did you have the latitude for a complete redo? Again, you haven’t told us and want us to judge your logo designs in the vacuum of not knowing the parameters of the problem and the reasons necessitating a logo change.

Putting all that aside, there are a few practical issues to consider with your two designs.

Your first design with the 3D letter looks dated, like something a small company in the 1950s might have. I don’t think the design matches IKEA’s efforts to provide modern product design at affordable prices. Then again, at least to me, IKEA’s existing logo looks a little dated and is a mismatch with its products.

Your second logo has the company name in yellow type on a white background. Yellow on white has insufficient value contrast, which greatly impairs legibility. Exacerbating that problem is the difficult-to-read script tagline and the small product illustrations overlaying the yellow typography. Imagine driving down the highway at 100 kph. Could you easily decipher this logo on a sign, read the tagline, or make any sense of the tiny product illustrations?

#7

This brings up one of my soapbox peeves. Why do professors insist on giving students assignments that involve high-ticket national corporations, when in reality most graduates will be working for mostly local (or at best) regional agencies. Totally unrealistic. Professors, give students assignments that involve realistic real-world situations.

#8

Speaking of billboards and legibility…
There’s a billboard I go by every morning. For the past 5 workdays, I’ve been trying to figure out what it was selling (I still don’t know.)
I have finally gotten past the horrible skinny typography over a very busy image that made me think it said “Treat your T-Ts”
???
It wants you to “Treat your 11s.”
???
It took another day to read the script underneath in parenthesis that said “frown lines.”
Maybe this week I’ll figure out how they want you to do that.
???
I’d take a picture of it, but not on that 4-lane highway at 65mph.
Maybe it’s still there. They don’t last long on that board. High rent.

#9

What people miss is a rebrand doesn’t mean a redo.

It’s incremental progressive changes

#10

While driving, billboards are an endless source of amusement for me—especially the pricey ones on major highways that communicate nothing because no one can digest the information on them while driving.

An image of Santa drinking a Coca-Cola or words that say “McDonald’s next exit” work out great. They communicate their messages at a single glance.

On the other hand, billboards, like the one you mentioned, from companies no one has heard of that promote equally unknown products and that list URLs and street addresses to remember, in addition to a line or two of text, accomplish nothing but shuffling money from the advertiser to the billboard company. If the advertiser had flushed their $15,000 down the toilet, the results would have been just as effective.

My best guess is that a third of the billboards I see are mostly or completely ineffective due to excessive verbiage or pitching services and products no one understands or will remember. I pass one particular billboard every two or three weeks that shows a big QR code for drivers or passengers to scan with their phones as they drive by, which isn’t going to happen.

I always tell clients that a billboard is a waste of money if the message can’t be communicated within 2–3 seconds. The weird thing is that they usually nod their heads in agreement as I explain and then want to move forward with it anyway.

#11

They just want a billboard.
They don’t care.

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#12

Has to be one or two seconds. That highway, at that time of the morning, if you are doing 65, you get run over.

#13

Ha ha, 3 days later, it’s a “day spa” of some kind. Logo too skinny to read over the image.
And looked to be a list of services too, cuz I caught Botox in the top one.
Now I don’t care any more and will go back to my morning coffee.
:slight_smile:

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