Interview: Adding Color to Ikea Furniture with Mykea

Mykea is a company which redesigns Ikea furniture by adding fun and vivid decals. We challenged the team to a short interview about their line of work and we were surprised to see how promptly they responded. Enjoy these fun Ikea furniture conversions as well as the answers from Mykea below:

• Freshome: How did you come up with the idea for a company that customizes Ikea furniture?
• Mykea: How we came up with the idea is probably how it usually goes, by experiencing something and not finding the answer (or in our case, the product). Most of the people we know have been to an Ikea store and have had the pleasure of assembling their furniture. So did we when we were furnishing our new office. After a long day of shopping and putting the furniture pieces together we looked around our new office and found out we only had two colours; white and black. Someone said, there is something missing. Its like we are in an Ikea store. Can we not get some cool graphics and apply them onto our interior and make it a bit more ‘us’. This is how our idea started. We got online to see if we could find a website for Ikea decals, we couldn’t find anything like it. We sat down to discussed if we should start a website ourselves to customize Ikea furniture with graphic decals. Looking at the online possibilities and supply of customized products we came across a lot of websites who work together with artist that create designs for Iphones, laptops or t-shirts. Designs made for well known and well sold products to let you, as a consumer, stand out from the crowd. We thought everybody knows Ikea, and a lot of people have Ikea furniture in their interior. But don’t we just love and hate Ikea at the same time. We like the well-designed and affordable aspect of Ikea but we don’t like the fact that we see the same interior everywhere around us. Maybe we can, with our designs and website, make people proud again about their Ikea furniture!

• Freshome: When did you start your business and where do you see yourselves 5 years from now?
• Mykea: Around 6 months ago we launched a test site to get a first reaction and impression on what visitors thought of our concept. The reactions came form all over the world and where very positive. 5 weeks ago we launched our new site. We’ve added more furniture pieces and everyday there are new designs coming in. We developed a new graphic vinyl, together with Avery Denison, witch is very easy to apply a can be removed without leaving marks. At the moment we’re having our first skype calls with a very cool US company to cooperate on design and to manufacture the Mykea products in the USA. So where we are within 5 years we don’t know yet! Who knows, we may work together with Ikea…

• How would you characterize your work in thee words?
• Mykea: No Naked Furniture!

• Freshome: Please describe the process of converting an Ikea furniture piece from the moment you buy it (how do you choose what furniture to purchase?) until the moment you sell it forward.
• Mykea: We have selected the most sold and well-known Ikea furniture pieces. Ikea self calls these pieces their most important furniture (source ikea.com 2010). We measured these furniture pieces and created a special designers kit. Artist and designers can download the kit from our website to create designs that will fit Ikea furniture to the millimetre. On Mykea you can select the furniture piece you have at home or office and explore the designs created by our artist to redesign your Ikea interior.  Mykea designs are printed on demand and will be shipped to your home address in 5 till 7 working days.

• Freshome: How does your target respond to your designs?
• Mykea: We’ve had great responses to our designs. We are constantly working on a good mix of easygoing and more high-end designs. We are getting questions from visitors who like our design but don’t have Ikea if we can make the design available as a wall graphic. So we will shortly add designs witch are also available as a wall decal.

• Freshome: How many members does your team have? Please describe the work atmosphere at your office in a few words.
• Mykea: The work we do at our office is great. All the wall are decorated with designs and if you enter the front door be aware not the trip over any Ikea furniture. Working together with a creative team of designers, web developers, project managers and of course our international artists is great. The best thing is that we work locally with our close team and very international with our developers and artist. This gives an extra global fibe to our office and work.

• Freshome: What is your favorite Ikea customized design so far?
• Mykea: The amplifier design by LouLou & Tummie! Giving some retro DJ feel to your standard Expedit bookcase and turn it into a more of a design object. For us it’s about making fun and unique designs available for the crowd. We’ll have the Amplifier soon available as a unique Wall Designs as well.

• Freshome: Anything else you would like the world to know about Mykea ?
• Do tell us witch Ikea furniture you’d like to see customized! And if you’re interested in Mykea please send us an email at info@thisismykea.com

Source.

Mykea – Pimp your IKEA furniture!

To walk through an IKEA store means browsing the mass quantities of furniture, rugs, lamps and every other household item imaginable with one hand holding their $1 frozen yogurt cone and the other, a plate of Swedish meatballs. Since it gets a good and bad rap for being both affordable and yet incredibly plain, a small creative company that goes by the name Mykea has come up with an Ikea-inspired idea.

An Inexpensive Way to Customize IKEA Furniture

The way it works is this: First, you choose your favorite piece of Ikea furniture. Some of the most popular items are listed on their website (but other requests can be fulfilled) and they include: Malm bed, Billy bookcase, Expedit bookcase, Expedit coffee table, Malm dresser, Lack coffee table, and Pax wardrobe.

Next, choose your favorite design of dozens and dozens that people just like you, who appreciate spicing their home up with more than a scented candle, have created for Mykea. When I checked out the page last, you have your choice of up to 53 different patterns and illustrations, as well as solid colors. So in other words, you tell them which standard piece you’ve chosen from the IKEA furniture superstore, and they’ll equip you with the custom-cut design that will make it stand out from the pack.
To apply the designs, all you need are household items. It will be shipped to you in a cylindrical container. All you have to do is apply soapy water to the surface of your bookshelf backing, wardrobe doors, coffee table surface, dresser drawers or bed frame and carefully stick on the appropriate design. Smoothing with a spatula of any kind, it’s a no-frills way to achieving beautiful furniture. The cost of a Mykea design depends on the design itself. Some are larger, and more detailed, others are smaller and appear to be a black and illustration, not to mention the abstract, colorful designs in between.
Celebrate to the tune of the Mykea motto and just say NO to NAKED furniture!
Source.

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Für alle die mit IKEA Möbeln nie so wirklich was anfangen konnten, weil’s Massenware ist oder weil es sie immer nur in den gleichen Farben gibt, denen wird jetzt geholfen.
Mykea ist eine Website die, die Möglichkeit bietet bestimmte IKEA Stücke mit Hilfe von Designfolien, so genannten Decals auf zu hübschen. Also verpasst eurem ‘Hemnes’, ‘Pax’ oder ‘Billy’ einen neuen Look!
Quelle.

Here some Mykea products:

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 More:

• Mykea Online Shop
• Ikea Hackers: “We just can’t leave IKEA alone, can we? We hack, personalise, repurpose IKEA products into the very thing we want. And we love sharing our creation with others. If you have an IKEA hack, we would love to see it. “

To have an idea of what the ikea worldwide hackers can do, take a look at The Best Hack of 2010. Here are some awesome furniture modifications that I found there:

Meddling with Melodi
Materials: Melodi pendant lamp
Hydrangea Girl, Ireland

Bedroom dress boys
Materials: Two Bertil chairs, cleat, glue, screws, drill, circular saw, paint.
G.V.M., The Netherlands

Spring Back Banker’s Chair
Materials: 4 laminate bent Ikea legs and two seats from antique banker’s chairs
Andrew Riiska, Los Angeles

Lack bench/lounger
Materials: Lack coffee tables
Charles Crawford, San Diego