Journal

Can a design be a statement in a public debate?

In this case, it is.

This cabinet has deliberately been designed in roughly the same size and proportions as IKEA’s woven cabinet. But that is where the similarities end. Every detail is based on our own original design language, developed over many years, and the production relies on our existing templates and constructions.

At the same time, this is also a natural evolution of our own Weave Frame series. For a long time, we have wanted to expand the series from the original tall cabinet with a single door into a more traditional two-door version.

The purpose is to highlight something that is often overlooked in discussions about “inspiration”: the way IKEA’s design appears to be a patchwork of ideas and expressions that smaller designers have already developed long before.

As a designer, I cannot avoid asking why IKEA’s Head of Design, Johan Ejdemo, chooses to approve a design with such clear similarities to an already existing product from another company. IKEA has long had a somewhat tarnished reputation when it comes to these kinds of issues — so why continue down that path?

What makes the situation particularly remarkable is that there are several obvious ways the design could have been developed further to create greater distance from our original. To me, that is the very essence of inspiration: taking something further and making it your own. Otherwise, design risks being reduced to imitation.

In emails, Johan Ejdemo writes that he, “based on experience,” does not wish to comment further on the matter. At the same time, he states that IKEA has made a “professional assessment” and concluded that there has been no infringement of our copyright. That clarifies at least two things: the design was not developed without knowledge of our woven cabinets, and IKEA has encountered similar situations before. Perhaps our production was even used as a reference.

This cabinet is therefore both a new piece of furniture and a statement. A way of demonstrating just how close the line between original and copy can be — and why the issue of plagiarism matters.

On Saturday, May 24, 2026, Lukas’ opinion article will be published in DN Debate, discussing IKEA’s plagiarism and the consequences it has for Swedish design and independent designers.