Enlightening inspirations

Ikea has a series of inspirators (I have borrowed the word from expedia) online. These are part guide, part illustrations of its product range and part carrot - the idea being to indulge in a little more Ikea stuff (of any sort). My favourites are the lighting guides. Or to be more specific its the the inspirator entitled Furnish with Light (aka Light Up Your Light). The use of Flash gives a very relevant edge to the guide (an equally eloquent print version is virtually impossible) while being quite playful and charming. And there are opportunites to up-sell and cross-sell other products.

Unfortunately its other inspirators (on storage, on bedroom moods through colour, texture etc) fail toprove their leading edge via the online media. Some of there could have looked equally good, and done the job as well, in print. However, my key complaint is the slightly unplanned way in which these can be accessed - a little flashing (not animated) light bulb shows the way to different inspirators scattered around different pages on different country sites. Some countries, unfortunately dont have these on their site. Then the Ikea site (or rather the landing page of the individual stores) itself looks like it could do with a spring clean - a case of information overload. Or redefine its own storage (or layout) logic wrt these inspirators.

Anyway, have a wander and go at switching lights on and off. And while you are looking at the lights you might fancy buying that picture, the vase or even that sofa.