After 5 intensive months, a nomination for Best Show in Milan!

A 3.500 sqm six day festival in an old factory to launch the new creative direction from IKEA, "Make Room for Life" at Milan Design Week 2017. 

Nikextension's role was creative concept for the experience, collaborations with guest designers, architectural plans, production of build-up and more. Besides that we also wrote the strategy, “Make Room for Life”, two years ago that was the main theme of the festival and now the overarching concept for IKEA global design and communication going forward.

The IKEA Festival received a nomination for "Best Show" in all of Milan by the official organisation behind the Milan Design Week – which is a first for IKEA. We're working on case film for this project.

Discussing the future at Hyper Island

It was a big privilege for Nikolaj to go to Hyper Island Stockholm and spend a day with a crowd of 50 likeminded professionals to discuss what the future might look like – and what the curriculum should look like to meet the needs that will arise the near future.

So Wallpaper* Magazine is teasing about this big project we're working on for IKEA for the Milan Design Week in April. NO PRESSURE! :-)

"WHAT MAKES A HOME?" OPENS NOW AT IKEA MUSEUM

For the past months we've been working intensely with IKEA Museum to visualize the "Life at Home Report" that is based on 12.000 interviews around the world. For the next 6 weeks from February 4th the 800 sqm area will be welcoming visitors to a world of deep knowledge and sensory experiences. We will be posting in more detail shortly. In the meantime take a trip to IKEA HQ in Älmhult, Sweden to see for yourself.

RESEARCH TRIP TO MILAN

There is a big project on the rise in the Spring of 2017. We're in Milan to investigate the venue – it is HUGE and it looks stunning. We've brought one of our favorite collaborators, designer Alvin Chan, along to work on the project.

WHO ARE WE, REALLY?

That is a good question and this week we've had the pleasure of having Miles Appleton from Hyper Island with us. He is a Creative Strategist and besides from having completed his crash course in Danish pastry (that would be "Thébirkes" in the photo) he has been analyzing Nikextension and will shortly present his findings to us. Please come back soon Miles!

Wohoo! Award time in london

We were lucky enough to win a trophy at the Lovie Awards 2016 in London which is basically celebrating the best of the internet across Europe. Needless to say we feel very honored. Thanks to everyone who collaborated with us on the IKEA+HAY film!

redefining wooden typehouses

We have been in charge of the creative direction of the design of a brand new generation of typehouses built in wood. The first one is made by Urban Design in Stockholm. The project is called MOVEHOME LAB and it has been great fun way working at the intersection of brand development, communication and architecture. Thanks Trivselhus, Hans Brindfors and Brand Union for inviting us to be part of this process. Read more at movehome.se/lab – soon more models to come!
#movehomelab

AMSTERDAM PART II

Christian and Nikolaj just got back from their second trip Amsterdam and a couple of really nice meetings with great people. Thanks to our collaborator Matilda Sundåker for helping to make it happen. We will be back real soon.

Two nominations for The Lovie Awards in London

We are over the moon with excitement with todays news that our film for IKEA+HAY have received two nominations for the prestigious award. One shortlist in Animation and one Finalist in Branded Entertainment: Live Experiences. As if it that wasn't enough we also have a shot at winning The Lovie People's Choice Award.

SHOW DOWN DAY FOR HYPER ISLAND X IKEA FOOD

So, finally after 5 weeks of really, really hard work the Hyper Island students of Digital Media Creative were able to present their solutions to IKEA Food. It went down really nicely and several of the solutions are now being considered for realisation. Nikolaj Fremming ran the module as Industry Leader. Lecturers were Christian Aronsen, Jakob Hyldebrandt, Vicky Chen and Hanne Klintøe.

FASTCODESIGN.COM THINKS WE'RE ON DRUGS!

This article on fastcodesign.com suggests that the entire team involved in this project was in drugs while making this. We think that they mean that a compliment - so thanks a lot! :-) Check out the project here. 

INTERVIEW ABOUT THE "ROOM FOR ALL"

Christian was interviewed by IKEA Today regarding the exploration we've done with IKEA into a new floor plan. This formed part of the massive exhibition "What makes a home?".

SHOOTING AT 70 DEGREES NORTH

We've just completed a production of four films about salmons for IKEA Food. The shootings took place in the very north of Norway and in Sweden - it was breathtakingly beautiful. The director was our own Nikolaj Fremming and DoP was Morten Kühl. The films will be published in August.

Democratic Design Days Exhibition Marathon

Relieved and more than a little content. After three very intensive weeks of designing and building. Many people were involved but guys these are main force behind the 1.600 sqm exhibition at IKEA HQ. The theme is "What makes a home?"

The New Digital Media CreativeS from Hyper Island

This is the Digital Media Creatives '17 of Hyper Island. We just ended their first module with a very powerful exhibition of "New tech for old people", a "Creative Survival guide for non-Hypers" and personal video from each of the students. Nikolaj Fremming of Nikextension ran the module as the Industry Leader and feels it was a true pleasure working with this super talented bunch. Thanks for making Nikolaj proud guys!

NOW IN TRANSYLVANIA!

(Apologies in advance for any Dracula jokes) We're now in Romania for the first time with Director Boris Benjamin Bertram. We are here to do research for a huge film project for one of our clients that has a lot of production here. The ambition is to make it a bloody good film. It's feels great to have a project to sink our teeth into and it seems like we will be up to our neck with this one.

NEW YORK

This is a retrospective post as we have to write a little bit about our trip to New York even though it took place in August. We spent five very hectic days filming and interviewing professionals from various creative industries for a 10 minutes mini-documentary for IKEA. Fortunately, Christian used to live in NYC in the late 80's, so even though the city has developed just a little bit, he was able guide the crew and impress even locals with amusing to slightly bizarre anecdotes. It was a great trip and a true privilege to meet and get inside the heads of such interesting personalities. The process of boiling 10+ hours of interviews down to 10 minutes is admittedly not as fun however greatly rewarding when you see the final result - if we may say so :-)

Hands on

As much as we like to work creatively on a strategic level we also like to be very hands on and actually build and craft stuff with our hands. This is Christian and photographer Morten Kühl utilizing the daylight for a foody tabletop shot. Gotta go - the deadline is approaching fast.

Shooting in Mallorca

Last week Nikextension, Barkas and Morten Kühl shot a documentary-style film for IKEA. The objective of the film is to anchor the creative strategy within a specific area. We went to nine locations around the island in combination with shooting in Copenhagen. The people were so kind to us everywhere we went and it was rather convenient that Nikolaj was able to direct in Spanish! We owe our local Production managers Joan Cobos and Laura Martín a big gracias.