LSN : Daily Signals : Foresight Friday: Emily Rhodes, creative lead

Ikea launches furniture and décor collection that frames play as a part of the entire home

Ikea, Stockholm

US – At Miami Art Week, global Swedish home furnishings retailer Ikea used its Open House Miami installation to reframe play as an everyday design principle rather than a zone limited to children’s rooms.

The showcase unveiled Grejsimojs, a 33-piece furniture and décor collection informed by the company’s post-pandemic play studies, which found that families increasingly want play to flow seamlessly through the home.

Inside a vacant retail space, Ikea built a central display of Grejsimojs objects with surrounding vignettes demonstrating how play-led design can integrate into lived spaces.

Designer Carl Öjerstam’s fluffy reinterpretation of Ikea’s Mammut chair signalled how humour, tactility and imagination can soften and enliven domestic environments.

Explore our Home and Family topic to see how emerging behaviours and design shifts are linking with family life.

Strategic opportunity

Design products and experiences that embed playful cues into everyday environments. Prioritise tactile materials, adaptive formats and moments of surprise that invite open-ended interaction

Foresight Friday: Emily Rhodes, creative lead

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, creative lead Emily Rhodes discusses where brands have missed the goal when it comes to women’s sports marketing.

: In November, Sky Sports launched – and swiftly scrapped – its female-focused TikTok channel Halo after just three days. Intended to ‘build a welcoming community for female fans’, the execution instead played into dated stereotypes about women’s sport as frivolous or secondary. A clip of a Manchester City goal captioned ‘How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits’, became the lightning rod for criticism. Sky issued an apology, admitting it ‘didn’t get it right’, before closing the channel.

: A similar misstep followed during the UK Women’s League Cup quarter-final and semi-final draw, hosted by media personality GK Barry and her partner, Portsmouth football midfielder Ella Rutherford. What could have been a moment to spotlight queerness and community in the game descended into unprofessionalism, prompting an apology from the League. As comedians and hosts of Big Kick Energy Maisie Adam and Suzi Ruffell noted, the organisers booked GK Barry for her audience reach but overlooked the existing, deeply engaged women’s football fanbase – one that values the integrity of the sport as much as entertainment. Crucially, they pointed out that such an approach ‘would never have happened in the men’s game’.

: So how should brands show up? A new wave of creatives and players are shaping a fresh visual language for women’s football – one rooted in authenticity and the energy of its grassroots, as explored in our Grassroots Game Days design snapshot.

PACER for Mitre, UK

Quote of the week

‘There’s a lot of people that don’t like confidence, especially when a woman is showing a lot of confidence in life. They don’t like it. And maybe it’s the confidence in me that I don’t care’

Chloe Kelly, English professional footballer (source: Dazed)

Stat: UK anxiety about rapid cultural change accelerates

Photography by Thiago Matos, Brazil

UK – Public unease about the pace and direction of cultural change in the UK is intensifying, with new research revealing a sharp rise in perceptions of national division. According to Ipsos, 84% of Britons now say the country feels divided – the highest level recorded since tracking began in 2020 and a noticeable climb from 79% in 2023 and 74% five years ago.

Concerns about ‘culture wars’ are also escalating. Two-thirds (67%) believe the UK is divided along cultural battle lines, up dramatically from 46% in 2020. Much of this shift has occurred in the past two years, underscoring the speed with which polarisation has entered mainstream sentiment.

At the same time, rising nostalgia points to a deeper cultural disorientation. Nearly half (48%) say they wish the country could return to how it ‘used to be’, compared with just 28% in 2020. This longing spans generations and reflects a broader erosion of meaning, as people struggle to locate shared narratives and common ground during rapid change – a tension The Future Laboratory identifies as The Paralysis Paradox.

For brands, the opportunity lies in moving beyond divisive cues and instead emphasising what connects people – collective moments, emotional resonance and the quiet pride found in shared human experience. Our Human by Design report explores how thoughtfully crafted interactions can help rebuild this sense of belonging.

Strategic opportunity

Design for feeling, not just function. Whether through tactile materials, intimate soundscapes or emotionally attuned interactions, brands that prioritise sensory and human connection can create experiences that ground people and foster genuine belonging