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Ikea shares early look at its portable party collection with Teenage Engineering

Ikea shares early look at its portable party collection with Teenage Engineering

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Coming February 2019

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IKEA x Teenage Engineering collaboration
Image: Ikeatoday / Instagram

Last year, Ikea announced it was collaborating with Teenage Engineering to create a line of products called FREKVENS (which translates to “frequency”) “in order to throw a really good music party wherever you are.” Now, Ikea has just shared the first look on Instagram of some final prototypes for the collection, which is set to come out early next year.

Inspired by the idea of having everything at your fingertips to spontaneously throw a party, Ikea says that when FREKVENS is released, it should include an electronic choir, turntable, party lighting and more. “When you are younger, you usually come up with the idea of a party the same day,” says Jesper Kouthoofd, head of design and CEO at Teenage Engineering. “For us, it is about finding a reason to make and play some music. Thinking about the totality of what you need for a party is a good start.”

While the Instagram post doesn’t detail what products are actually featured in the photo, it looks to be speakers and a few lighting options, including an LED brick and a portable spot that has several types of filters that can be affixed to the front. Everything is in bright colors with a minimalist aesthetic, with the purpose of making it all feel very accessible. “In FREKVENS we want to make products that everybody can grasp and handle,” says Kouthoofd. “Even those who are not so tech-savvy should swiftly be able to understand and use the products. And that, I guess, has been the biggest challenge, to find the right balance between technology and user friendliness.”

IKEA at Haven Festival
Image: Ikea

Last year, Ikea set up a music lab at Haven Festival in Copenhagen, which showed very early glimpses of the line, including the aforementioned turntable (shown above), bits of the guitar, and the light and portable speaker that appear in Ikea’s final prototypes photo. The entire collection will be released in February 2019.