Beijing loves IKEA — but not for shopping
Beijing loves IKEA — but not for shopping
Customers hop into display beds and nap, pose for snapshots with the decor and enjoy the air conditioning and free soda refills. They just don’t buy much.
Reporting from Beijing – With no plans one Saturday, Zhang Xin told his wife, son and mother to wear something smart and hop into the family sedan. He could have taken them to the Forbidden City or the Great Wall, but he decided on another popular destination — IKEA.
Riding an escalator past a man lying on a display bed with a book opened on his belly, the clan sauntered into the crush of visitors squeezing onto the showroom path, bumping elbows and nicking ankles with their yellow shopping trolleys.
Any thoughts on the font change?
What has IKEA done that would create reactions like this?
“Ikea, stop the . . . madness!” – Tokyo
“Horrific!” – Dublin
“It’s a sad day” – Typophile Online Forum
What have they done? Have they made faulty furniture? Supported an unpopular political candidate? Employed child slave labor to write cryptic instructions in Swedish for unsuspecting American bargain hunters? What could Ikea have possibly done that would surpass the death of Ted Kennedy on Twitter’s Trending Topics page?!?
They changed the font in their print catalog from a customized version of Futura to Microsoft’s standard Verdana.
Put the Sun to Good Use …
August 21, 2009, John Platt
Looking for a way to cut your lighting bills? Try Ikea’s solar-powered Sunnan desk lamps. For just $19.99 (plus tax), you can have a lamp that absorbs sunlight all day and sends it back to you in the evening.
These smart-looking lamps have solar cells in their bases (you can see them in the photo here), which power three rechargeable AA batteries. Recharging time is 9-12 hours in sunlight, longer on cloudy days, and the LED bulbs will work for at least four hours on a full charge. After that, they will continue to provide light, but at a slightly lesser level.
One thing I don’t like about these lamps is that the LED bulbs can’t be replaced. Sure, they have a theoretical 50,000 hour lifespan, but once that’s used up, so is the entire lamp.
Still, you don’t see many solar-powered lamps yet, so this is an idea whose time as come.
The Sunnan lamp is only available at Ikea stores, not online, so if you have an Ikea near you, drive on over and give this cool little device a try!
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