Our relationship with Ikea is 20 years old. We’ve created packaging for their nonfurniture items and tweaked their logo. Then in 2005 we were approached to redesign the food line. At that point, Ikea stores were carrying iconic Swedish brands and fewer of their own brands. They wanted to promote the “Swedishness” of the brand. To us, that means it has to be simple and direct, humorous and smart. And to remove unnecessary information and merely decorative things. There was also a pedagogical problem that needed to be solved: The product name is in Swedish; sometimes people don’t know how this product is meant to be consumed. So we have pictures to show that. This is a unique case. You are able to keep the packaging really simple because it’s a private-label brand placed in stores where it has no competition at all. — Björn Kusoffsky, founder and CEO, Stockholm Design Lab
