IKEA
I partnered with Ogilvy New York to craft the full visual experience for their 5-day pop-up in New York and Chicago. I designed, illustrated, and animated the look and feel of the IKEA Trivia Game — a web app that turned the event into an interactive scavenger hunt. Attendees explored four featured rooms from the 2019 catalog, scanning hidden trivia tags and answering questions directly through the app. My work brought the experience to life, blending playful design with IKEA’s iconic aesthetic, and creating a seamless journey that ended in a sweepstakes for a full room makeover.
PRODUCT DESIGNER
WEB APP
TOOLS USED
Adobe Suite
FIGMA
KEYNOTE
Background
For IKEA’s 75th Anniversary, the brand set out to craft a one-of-a-kind experience—giving customers an exclusive first look at the upcoming collection before its release. The challenge: deliver it on an accelerated timeline while ensuring it carried the social buzz and visual impact worthy of the milestone.
CHALLENGE
Ogilvy passed the project to my agency, Bajibot, with an extremely tight timeline. The web app carried added complexities—we had to block personal internet use to prevent players from gaming the system. Success for the project relied on precision, speed, and tight organization.
PROJECT DETAILS
ROLE: MIDLEVEL PRODUCT DESIGNER (NO ART DIRECTOR) LEFT WHEN PROJECT STARTED
TEAM: CREAtive director, Midlevel product designer, 3 interns to test app
01 Defining the Experience
We began by mapping sitemaps, user flows, and early concepts for the game, iterating multiple times and reviewing with the Ogilvy team to align on direction. Once approved, we translated these ideas into barebone UX flows that visualized every screen required. This process ensured we could design a clear, engaging experience while anticipating how users would move through the product.
03 DESIGN and animation
Through multiple iterations of layouts, illustrations, and animations, we crafted an experience that was both visually playful and on-brand. Each round of refinement sharpened the balance between fun, clarity, and usability—ensuring the final design felt polished, engaging, and cohesive across every interaction.
02 Character design
IKEA didn’t want the typical Swiss-style minimalism—they wanted this experience to feel unique in every possible way. That freedom allowed me to pitch bold, illustrative concepts, bringing the products to life as playful characters. This approach set the tone for a one-of-a-kind experience that felt both unexpected and true to IKEA’s spirit of accessibility and creativity.
04 TESTING
We rigorously tested the designs to ensure every interaction worked smoothly and no visual elements broke the experience. Over several days, we cycled through updates—identifying issues, logging them in Jira, and collaborating with developers until each detail was corrected. This iterative process ensured the final design was not only visually engaging but also fully functional.
IKEA DESIGN AND ANIMATIONS
After multiple rounds of refining designs, illustrations, and animations, we arrived at a vibrant, playful experience with engaging visuals. To ensure quality, we continuously QA’d the build—testing flows, catching bugs, and logging issues into Jira. From there, our developer implemented fixes through code updates, allowing us to deliver a smooth, polished final product.
ProtoType Of IKEA TRIVIA APP
RESULTS
1. Engagement at Scale
Over 11,000 user sessions were logged during the pop-up activation. This level of participation highlighted both the accessibility and the magnetic pull of the experience—proving that users were motivated to return, re-engage, and explore.
2. AVERAGE SPEND TIME
Visitors spent an average of 22 minutes per session inside the experience. That’s nearly half an hour of sustained attention in a retail environment—demonstrating that the design and flow kept people curious, entertained, and immersed longer than a standard store visit.
3. Culture + Community Impact
The pop-up wasn’t just digital—it blended culture, food, and fun. Guests collectively consumed 25,200 Swedish meatballs, showing how the experience extended beyond interaction screens into lifestyle and memory-making. It wasn’t only about furniture; it was about living IKEA.