Ikea ‘hacks’ its iconic designs in new line

Ikea furniture is sort of a blank canvas. With a little creativity and a lot of patience, it’s easy enough to improve on the company’s simple and affordable designs. Anyone can “hack” an Ikea product. And they do. But what does it look like when actual designers take on the challenge? Here’s your answer: The Lyskraft line.

Ikea tapped Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings to reimagine a handful of classic products, giving them full reign on pieces like the Klippan love seat and the Poäng chair. The husband and wife team is known for its colorful takes on common products (see its Hay collaboration), and its work for Ikea is in the same vein.

Scholten & Baijings designed the ubiquitous Poäng chair in new gradient hued colors and quilted coverings, while the Klippan love seat gets rexmied with new quilted covers and painted birch legs. There’s a handful of smaller items to choose from, too, including bright patterned plates and muted paper napkins. The limited-edition line begins rolling out in stores this month.

With Lyskraft, Ikea gets rather self aware, claiming Scholten & Baijings’s new products as an extension of DIY culture. That’s probably a bit of an exaggeration; after all, you can still buy these products in stores. But you’ve got to hand it to the retailer—instead of railing against Ikea hacker culture, it’s acknowledging that sometimes the best Ikea products are the ones it never imagined.