We have all been there at some point, even if you don’t want to admit it. We went there, looked around, and went back home with a bunch of boxes containing the entire evening’s building project. I am of course talking about IKEA, the first company in the world to let us buy their furniture and put it together ourself. Brilliant isn’t it? Sure, but the random annoyances of missing pieces and the frustration of not fitting the pieces together correctly is something we have all experienced. We’ve developed a love/hate relationship with IKEA, and with that comes the ease or haunting of their manuals and instructions. Believe me, there is an IKEA culture out there as well, just like with Star Wars and Lego, that takes people beyond the annoyances and irritations.
The uses of an IKEA manual (or instructions manual if you will) could be many, but what is ultimately cooler than building a chair or a table is of course making Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Back To The Future or even Dr. Who into IKEA manuals. It’s a brilliant series of mash-ups, and the illustrations are beautifully created. You can tell that H. Caldwell Tanner spent a lot of time studying IKEA manuals because these situations are just spot on.
It’s easy to let yourself be inspired by great work, and these are no exception. Just looking at these will have you come up with great ideas that might make you a force to be reckoned with in the design community. It feels a little like the emergency manuals that were realistically reproduced in Fight Club. Instead of smiling faces on the passengers, they were screaming in fear and horror. These are a little lighter on your mind of course, but they bear the same style and feel as the ones in Fight Club. Maybe you’ll get enough inspiration to make your own! If you do, make sure to tell us about it, and we’ll certainly be sure to show it to our community.
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