Herman Miller's Capelli stool has earned a "Silver" in the 2002 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), an international competition co-sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America.
The Capelli stool was one of 174 product designs selected by a juried panel from among more than 1,100 entries submitted from throughout the United States and 16 foreign countries.
The IDEA competition fosters business and public understanding about the impact of industrial design excellence on the quality of life and the economy.
The Capelli stool is available from Herman Miller for the Home.
The complete news release follows.
HERMAN MILLER'S CAPELLI STOOL EARNS INTERNATIONAL DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD
Herman Miller, Inc., a leading global provider of innovative office furniture and workplace consulting services, today announced that its Capelli stool has earned a "Silver" in the 2002 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), a prestigious international competition co-sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
The Capelli stool, a Herman Miller for the Home product, is among 174 product designs selected by a juried panel as this year's best. The annual competition, which this year received 1,116 entries, includes everything from new car designs to household items and medical equipment.
"It's a beautiful product, thoughtfully designed and executed, and it works exceptionally well in a wide variety of settings and applications," said Marg Mojzak, senior marketing and product manager at Herman Miller. "The IDEA honors will give us a wonderful new opportunity to introduce the Capelli stool to a wider audience."
The stool's design consists of two identical molded plywood pieces with undulating "fingers" machined at the top, similar in appearance to a Japanese puzzle box. The pieces interlock without tools or fasteners to form an ingeniously stable and remarkably strong structure. It unfolds and the two halves stack together conveniently for easy shipping and storage. The stool features a light ash veneer finish.
"From the beginning, we envisioned the form of the stool as a simple curve. We kept refining it until it was comfortable, strong, and graceful," explained Carol Catalano, designer of the Capelli stool and principal of Catalano Design, Boston. "I'm thrilled that it has won the IDEA Silver and will benefit from the international recognition that this prestigious competition generates." The stool is Catalano's first design for Herman Miller for the Home.
"Some may see an echo of George Nelson's platform bench in the Capelli stool," said Ray Kennedy, director, Herman Miller for the Home. "And there's the fact that Carol uses molded plywood techniques that Charles and Ray Eames perfected. But we see these as merely the slightest nod toward the masters. Carol's stool stands strictly on its own, yet it undoubtedly complements the other furniture in our collection."
IDEA competition entries were submitted from throughout the United States and 16 countries worldwide. Jury Chair Chuck Jones, FIDSA, said that all 2002 award-winners were "face-changing designs, functional, hit the specific target audience and were designed with the sound principles that our members demand. Any product that won, essentially, raised the bar of excellence for that category."
The IDEA program fosters business and public understanding about the impact of industrial design excellence on the quality of life and the economy. IDSA is the nonprofit association that represents the profession of industrial design to education, business, government and the public and serves the profession’s needs for information and networking.
The complete IDEA Awards report, including an in-depth analysis of the winning entries, appears in BusinessWeek editions on newsstands June 28. The IDSA monthly newsletter, Design Perspectives, also will have a wrap-up in its July 2002 issue. Detailed descriptions and photos of all 174 award winners are featured on the IDSA Web site at www.idsa.org.
Herman Miller creates great places to work by researching, designing, manufacturing, and distributing innovative interior furnishings that support companies, organizations, and individuals all over the world. The company's award-winning products, complemented by primary furniture-management services, generated over $2.2 billion in revenue during fiscal 2001. Herman Miller is widely recognized both for its innovative products and business practices, including the use of industry-leading, customer-focused technology. Again in 2002 Herman Miller was named "America's Most Admired" furniture company by Fortune magazine and included in Forbes magazine's "Platinum List" of best-performing large corporations. The company trades on the NASDAQ stock market under the symbol MLHR.
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