Our Internship at IKEA

Hej! We are Angelina and Susanna and we will be blogging about our internship at IKEA together. It’s been 2 weeks into our internship and we both work with communications under the same supervisor. Summing our experiences in two words: Exciting and Inspiring. Meeting people of different backgrounds from all over the world in this little town called Älmhult, the headquarters of IKEA, literally in the middle of nowhere, is very exciting. One day we could be meeting with the Italian designers and the next day we could be travelling to IKEA Helsingborg for meetings or having discussions over lunch with the sustainability manager.

In the first week, we attended guided tours by the managers from the different departments. Going behind the scene at IKEA communications where the iconic IKEA’s catalog was created and seeing live products photoshoot taking place with a huge range of props in many settings are beyond amazing and a real eye-opener. Creativity is overflowing. At the accredited IKEA Test Lab, it’s a whole new vibe. Minimalism precedes the usual bright colorful walls. A lot of testing goes on under the same roof, from chemistry to textile, furniture, lightings and fire. It’s nice and warm being in the climate chamber which stimulates humidity changes to reveal how the product will behave in certain conditions such as in hot and humid countries.

It’s inspiring to learn the story behind every product. It takes numerous research, testing and thousands of home visits to understand how to create better products with good design. IKEA’s democratic design brings good design through the ideal combination of form, function, quality and sustainability at an affordable price, something which we learn to keep in mind.  

In these two weeks, we learn a lot about communications and PR. Our work can range from mapping collaborations to creating content, editing and travelling for meetings. After work, we will walk over to IKEA’s Activity House to work out and also play badminton. It’s free! That also includes using of the sports hall, facilities and renting of sports equipment. Aktivitetshuset has all kinds of sports equipment, fitness classes, café, lounge, function rooms, music recording room, car maintenance facilities, steam bath and sauna, facial and massage and many more. Our internship marks the start of our work-life balance healthy lifestyle!