Essential Eames is a traveling exhibition tracing the life and work of the Eameses. A collaboration between Herman Miller and the Eames office, the show invites visitors to dive into the many facets of Charles and Ray, from architecture to film, and from toys to products and furniture.

Beginning in Hong Kong as part of Herman Miller Reach, the successful exhibition has recently moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where will be open until June 22.

More information here.

For University of Washington student Erik Alskog, “It’s the students who make campus green.” Busy thinking up new ways to make their school earth friendly, Alskog and his fellow classmates are redefining what it means to be green. They challenge us to imagine bike-powered monorails connecting campus with the surrounding areas where students live; new forms of wind farming that mimic swaying blades grass; and products designed to last a hundred years.

Alskog was one of three winners in our third annual Student Video Contest. We posed the question, “What makes your campus green?,” students everywhere responded, and viewers selected the winners.

Alskog is not alone in thinking of the future; students today see themselves as green innovators working to make their campuses more environmental.

To see some of the other great videos we received, click here.

Check out Eye Delight-2011 for more interesting images.

Today marks the opening of the Herman Miller Pop Up Shop at 68 Wooster Street in the heart of Soho in New York City. Designed to highlight the new Herman Miller Collection, the shop features richly detailed furniture vignettes with accessories and objects to complement. Each is created to tell design stories past and present. We invite you to add the shop to your itinerary if you travel to Manhattan between now and July 1. The store is open Monday through Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm, and Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm.
View directions and map

Herman Miller's new Quilty textile mimics the water and oil repellant properties of a lotus leaf.

Biologist, innovation consultant, and author, Janine Benyus has dedicated her life to the idea that learning from natural models is the best way to achieve sustainable design. Through her Biomimicry Guild, she has inspired companies to look to nature as model, measure, and mentor in the design process.

She has a lot in common with Charles Eames, who said that design “depends largely on constraints.” For Benyus, it’s a matter of the way everything on earth, with the regrettable exception of most humans, learns to live within nature’s limits.

Mimicking nature’s wisdom results in products such as Quilty textile. It uses engineering on the molecular level to mimic the surface of the lotus leaf so that water and oil roll off its surface.

Benyus was recently honored with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for her pioneering work. Her willingness to learn from the limits nature imposes recalls another Eames statement from nearly 50 years ago: “Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible and his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.”

Meridian filing and storage units are one of the first products to use counterweights made from the new cement mix containing recycled powdercoat.

Designing for a Better World means being mindful of the environmental impact of our products. In the past this led us to discontinue rosewood until a sustainable alternative could be found. Today it means eliminating one of our largest landfill items: the overspray from our powdercoating process.

Working in collaboration with a local West Michigan supplier, VanderWall Brothers Concrete, Herman Miller has found a way to recycle leftover powdercoat into a cement mix. The mix is used to make the counterweights that sit in the bottom of filing and storage units, preventing them from tipping over when the drawers are extended.

Testing has even shown the recycled powdercoat improves the binding qualities of the cement, producing a stronger block.It may even have applications in construction products.

Solving an industry-wide problem, we decided to share the new process with all of our competitors, ensuring that maximum environmental impact.

From stone-tipped axes to powerful 3D computer modeling programs, technology has always allowed design to push the boundaries of possibility.

The Atlantic recently included the Herman Miller SAYL chair, designed by Yves Béhar, on their list of designs using new technology to challenge the conventional understanding of how good design looks, feels, and functions. We are in good company. Visit the Atlantic to see the complete list.

The George Nelson X-leg table, selected by BassamFellows to join the Herman Miller Collection.

Serving as the Creative Directors of Herman Miller’s Specialty and Consumer division since 2010, BassamFellows’ Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows have been part of the brain trust curating the Herman Miller Collection. “We teach each other new things,” says Fellows. “We’re learning a lot about industrial production at a large scale, and they’re [Herman Miller] learning from us that hand or touch, the little details, that make all the difference.”

Giving life to George Nelson’s concept of the living room and the work room melding together have had BassamFellows looking through the old catalogs and designs to identify pieces and get them to the people. The collection features many well-loved pieces such as Nelson’s X- leg table and Eames chairs reinvented in new materials.

The Herman Miller Collection celebrates the past and present with more than 200 products. Added to this will be new furniture and accessories from today’s most talented designers.

The Collection will be making its first public display in the Herman Miller Pop Up Shop designed by BassamFellow. Located in the heart of New York City’s Soho district, the Pop Up Shop will open May 9 and run through July 1, 2012.

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, Brian Kane revealed that every design begins the same way: with paper and a pencil. “That is my favorite part of the process—having a good concept come alive on my drawing board!”

To sketching, Kane adds observation. In the case of Swoop, Kane drew on his experience teaching students at the California College of the Arts. He noticed students didn’t sit, as much as they drape themselves across furniture, and they constantly rearranged their furniture for working, meeting, or socializing.

Under Kane’s pencil, a line of modular lounge seating took form. Composed of tables, chairs, and lounges, each piece designed to be arranged, and rearranged. Curved arms encourage relaxation, while discouraging students from setting their soda cans on the upholstery. And deliberately few seams reduce the places for crumbs to collect.

For Kane, “It’s all about comfort and innovation.” Two qualities evident in his designs for Swoop.

Check out Crafting Chairs For How We Sit Now to learn more about Brian Kane’s career designing furniture.

For more than 30 years, George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames worked with Herman Miller to create iconic designs. While known for pieces like the Coconut chair, Marshmallow sofa, and molded plywood chairs, the truth is there was little these talented designers didn’t do.

From their respective offices in New York and Los Angeles, Nelson and the Eameses oversaw multidisciplinary firms that designed everything from exhibits to films to catalogs. The vintage print ads, above, are just a few examples of the graphic design contributions that defined the visual identity of the Herman Miller brand for decades.

To check out high-resolution versions of the ads,

Getting Down to Cases, 1952

New Designs by Eames, 1953

Indoor Outdoor Group, 1958

Collector’s Item, 1959

Timeline, 1960

Beware of Imitations, 1963

What is ailing in fine furnishings? “Nature,” answers design duo Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows. “I really feel that a connection to nature is what makes Modernism human,” says Bassam, who sees their work as an antidote to novelty-driven and mass-produced design.

Principally made from hand-finished wood, brass, and leather, furniture designed by BassamFellows follows their belief in “core luxury values”: honesty of material, solidity of construction; utility and beauty without elaboration. With the Tuxedo lounge seating, part of the Herman Miller Collection, the goal remains the same: an attention to luxury detail that doesn’t compete with the rest of the room.

Designing a sofa for the Herman Miller Collection was a “daunting challenge,” says Goetz. “If I were sitting in a room with Eames, Nelson, and Noguchi, and we were discussing design, I would be listening rather than talking,” he said. “When designing the sofa, I took on that role, trying to understand the qualities of the Collection that make it so wonderful. I wanted to create something that echoes the Collection and respectfully adds to it.”

Understanding that design is deeper than styling, Goetz made sure that his sofa would be comfortable, no matter what position you are in. He conducted research and consulted experts to arrive at a seat depth that provides ergonomic sitting support as well as room to lie down.

The result is a design that shares good company with the works of Eames, Nelson, and Noguchi.

The cover of Bill Birchard's book Merchant of Vitrue.

What role does design play in sustaining the earth? “The biggest role,” says writer, journalist, and Merchant of Virtue author Bill Birchard. An environmental advocate and proponent of business sustainability, Birchard shared with us his thoughts on caring for the earth, the importance of measuring environmental performance, and of course, design.

There’s always a lot of press coverage around Earth Day. It’s hard to know whether we’re doing better or worse at caring for the earth. What’s your view?

I think it’s useful to distinguish between consumers and companies. As a consumer, it’s sometimes hard to see whether we’re doing much better. On the corporate side, we’re doing a lot better. And that’s significant, because corporations have a huge amount of leverage compared to consumers. A recent Sloan/MIT study showed that 68% of companies had increased their commitment to sustainability in the last year, compared to just 25% doing so two years ago. Companies still have a long way to go, but the trend toward greater responsibility by the most powerful institutions on earth—corporations—appears irreversible.

We’re a company that uses design to solve problems. What role do you think design can play in sustaining the earth?

Design governs how products are sourced, manufactured, used, and disposed of. So what role does design play? The biggest role. In the 1990s, a number of “green” leaders inside Herman Miller and other companies recognized this, and now many companies are designing products for cradle-to-cradle environmental responsibility, a notion championed by Bill McDonough. The most visible example at Herman Miller is the design and redesign of the Aeron chair. (I sit in one.) It’s nice to know it’s made of 53% recycled material (like soda bottles) and in turn is 94% recyclable. Only with smart, forward-thinking design can manufacturing companies move toward mimicking the cycles of nature, where all waste and worn-out goods from manufacturing eventually cycle back into new goods.

What examples of design and design thinking from around the world have you seen that have sustainability at their core?

Examples with sustainability at their core are hard to find because almost everything man creates these days requires fossil fuel to manufacture or operate. Of course, concepts like cradle-to-cradle design, biomimickry, and dematerialization are leading us in the right direction. In the meantime, it’s important to be reminded of how solutions guided by sustainability can yield breakthroughs that in hindsight are so simple and obvious. In the developing world, one of my favorite examples is the soda-bottle light. If you haven’t seen it, take a look at this Reuters video, which features an effort in the Philippines. Designers everywhere can be inspired by its ingenuity. It pays immediate dividends in improving people’s lives and saving fossil fuel.

If you could do one thing to care for the earth, what would it be? How about the one thing you’d want everyone to do?

I would keep on urging companies to measure their environmental performance. My first book was called Counting What Counts. It argued that the way for companies to improve their performance was to measure and report all the things that mattered. Numbers drive results. There’s no getting around it. So pressing leaders to set goals and measure environmental performance—something everyone can do in their working life—is a powerful way to make progress in caring for the earth. As management thinker Charles Handy says, “Counting makes it visible, and counting makes it count.”

What insights, discoveries, or lessons learned from your research and writing can all of us apply to advocating for the environment?

I titled one of the chapters in Merchants of Virtue “Magic Zero.” I chose the title because, as I was writing, I realized that company managers who set goals to reach zero—zero landfill, zero brown energy, zero products designed unsustainably—create a sort of magic. After all their people get over complaining about the impossibility of actually achieving the goal, they try things they would never have dreamed of if they were just planning to improve something a bit at a time. So my belief is that we should all advocate in our organizations for giant leaps—to achieve zero in one helpful way or another to reduce our environmental footprints. Given a little time to “redesign” our approach, we achieve breakthroughs—like the elimination of once-ubiquitous solvent emissions in manufacturing like toluene and xylene. Zero lights up people’s imaginations.

BassamFellows design is “about merging the rationality and clarity of Modernism with the warmth and texture of nature” and marks the return of true craftsmanship and beauty to contemporary living. “We want to mix the timelessness and attention to detail of the modern classics with contemporary design, and blend it with honest materials, solid construction, beauty, and utility,” expresses Bassam.

This two-man team consists of architect/designer Craig Bassam and brand strategist/creative director Scott Fellows who joined forces in 2003 after leaving their successful solo careers to embark on the joint creative venture to create BassamFellows

Bassam made his move in 1997 to New Canaan, Connecticut where he began to develop his brand of Warm Modernism. Fellows, cut his teeth as a strategy consultant for some of the world’s largest consumer companies including Ferragamo luxury products before taking on the creative director position for Bally during its turnaround with highly published success.

Some of BassamFellows most popular designs include the stacking trays and tractor stools. Tuxedo sofas and lounge seating are part of the Herman Miller Collection and are a perfect fit with the Collection’s “modernism with soul” philosophy.

The truth, Charles and Ray realized, is that numbers only represent one percent of the world of mathematics. From a pinball demonstration of celestial movement to a 1,000-year timeline of mathematical discoveries and influential events, Charles, Ray, and the entire Eames Office worked hard to bring mathematics to life without numbers.

That timeline, long considered an outstanding example of interactive learning, joins nine Eames short films in a new iPad application developed by IBM and the Eames Office. Entitled Minds of Modern Mathematics, the app faithfully reproduces the entire 50-foot-long installation, and features hundreds of retouched photos used in the exhibit.

If, as Charles saw it, the goal was to “let the cat out of that bag… that one of the greatest secrets of science is the genuine fun and pleasure that scientists get out of it,” then the new Minds of Modern Mathematics app opens the bag for a new generation of learners.

In the 1950’s George Nelson characterized the ultimate office environment as “a daytime living room where work can be done under less tension with fewer distractions.” Today we work whenever and wherever we are most comfortable—Nelson’s goal is closer to reality than ever before.

Recognizing this, Herman Miller introduces the Herman Miller Collection. The Collection offers you the ability to select, furnish, and create complete environments in myriad settings—from the boardroom to the backyard. We believe that design goes much deeper than styling. Each piece in the Collection represents a solution that is as purposeful as it is beautiful.

The idea of the Collection is not entirely new. In his introduction to our 1948 catalog George Nelson wrote of “the continuing creation of a permanent collection designed to meet fully the requirements for modern living.” Nelson established a program and a philosophy for the Collection that allows us to continue it today.

The Collection began with classic pieces from Herman Miller’s archives that have stood the test of time. We then added complementary furnishings from our partners, such as Magis and Mattiazzi. And most importantly, we are developing new furniture and accessories with today’s most talented designers. These pieces will stand as a living demonstration of our design philosophy, bridging Herman Miller’s past, present, and future.

Back in 1948, Herman Miller was in need of a new catalog to show off its pioneering modern designs by George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames. Rising to the challenge, Nelson proposed a sophisticated catalog printed on high quality paper and full of beautiful photography. The problem? As DJ De Pree, founder of Herman Miller, made clear, the company could never afford to produce it.

Never deterred, Nelson redesigned the catalog. This time with an expensive hardcover and a color printed dust jacket—and a three-dollar price tag. Nelson, not wanting to compromise on quality, felt customers would pay for a catalog that demonstrated the same thoughtfulness evident in other Herman Miller designs. DJ had never heard of anyone doing this, but, in his wonderful way, he let Nelson go ahead with the idea.

The 1948 Herman Miller catalog proved to be a hit. Reprinted repeatedly over the following years, the price eventually became five dollars. Today, it is highly sought after by collectors of modern design.

Check out a slide show of the 1948 catalog here.

What good is a chair with holes? In the case of the Mirra, it’s the holes—567 of them to be exact—that provide the chair’s backrest its characteristic flex.

Envisioning a chair that acts as a second skin, Studio 7.5 designed Mira’s TriFlex back to move with the sitter. They worked with us to design and engineer holes of varying shapes and sizes. It results in the one-piece molded polymer back that has been fine-tuned to create three zones of flexibility. Each zone offers a different level of pliability for proper ergonomic support.

So, while holes in your desk chair are often cause for concern, in the case of Mirra, a back full of holes is a good thing.

Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine, believes it’s because people don’t have time for creativity at work. Chaining yourself to your computer in search of an answer, Lehrer argues, is only going to leave you frustrated. “You may look productive, but you’re actually wasting time.” Instead, he advices “go for a walk. You should play some ping-pong. You should find a way to relax.”

Scientific research backs up Lehrer’s advice, finding that people who are relaxed and in a good mood are more likely to have innovative or creative thoughts. And companies like 3M are taking advantage of this fact. With a track record of innovation, 3M gives every engineer an hour a day to use as he or she likes. Some tackle side projects, while others indulge in a personal hobby. The only catch is that they must share what they pursue during those hours with colleagues.

It worked for Charles Eames and has paid off for 3M. When will more companies realize the creative spark that catches fire may just be an hour away?

Bennett was able to reach the pinnacle of creative expression when he combined both his interior design aesthetic and architectural prowess to create homes for himself and clients. Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stones magazine and a commissioner of several Ward Bennett homes, remarked that, “there’s a lot of serenity [in a Bennett room]. He closed off the extraneous and focused exactly on what counted in the view.”

Bennett mainly wore a non-descript uniform of black attire with a full beard, holding luxury and simplicity in perfect balance, his design aesthetic mirrored personal style. He worked with only one assistant and did so mainly from his own home, keeping with his ideology of the pared down true to life.

Both trends—miniaturization and dematerialization—are likely to continue and speed up. As Ryan Anderson, our director of furniture technology, notes in the article, designers used to have time to anticipate where technology was headed and plan for it. But with the speed of technology change today, the furniture, and the space it occupies, have to adapt almost instantly.

The secret? Continual improvement. Using a process we call the Herman Miller Performance System, or HMPS, we compound small, incremental improvements into big change. Rearranging a bin of parts to be six inches closer may only save a half second, but when combined with hundreds of other refinements, the results add up. In fact, they add up to more than 260 seconds—or 4 minutes and 20 seconds—of time saved to make an Aeron chair.

Applying the same problem-solving knowhow to the production of our products as we do their design, Herman Miller remains at the cutting-edge. And while the competition is busy exporting manufacturing jobs, we can proudly say our products are made in the United States.

Checkout this video FastCompany made while visiting us a few weeks ago.

Bennett’s work with Dr Janet Travell, who worked with President John F. Kennedy, led him to acknowledge a need for chairs that work in tandem with the human skeleton rather that forcing it to conform to design aesthetics. “ Dr. Travell taught me how to sit and what to look for in a chair,” said Bennett when discussing his own back injury and subsequent design philosophy.

Forever an icon, Bennett’s uniform of all black attire and full beard were not his only idiosyncratic habits. Bennett worked with only one assistant and did so mainly from his own home, keeping with his ideology of keeping his designs pared down. Surely his design philosophy mirrored his life.

Stumpf began studying how people do—and should—sit back in 1974 at the University of Wisconsin. He worked with specialists in orthopedic and vascular medicine. And he helped translate that research into chairs that people know are comfortable the instant they sit in them.


Working with Herman Miller over the years, Stumpf, and his collaborators, designed four groundbreaking ergonomic chairs: Ergon and Equa, both predecessors to Aeron and Embody. Pushing the edge of design, each was an important advancement in sitting.

Born in 1936, Bill Stumpf would have turned 76 this March. He is still missed, although his work is still very much with us.

The Mad Men offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce drip with modern cool. The glass walls, sleek sofas, and leather chairs are exactly what you would expect of a successful New York ad agency in the 1960s.

For fans of the show with an eye for design, classic furniture abounds; but for Don Draper, the digs of his new Time & Life office were anything but classic. Draper and his partners were simply surrounding themselves with items that reflected—or might spur—the creativity of their work. Years later, the consensus is that some of these designs are classics, and not simply because they’ve endured over the decades.

So what makes a classic? A blend of beauty, utility, and a certain sense of inevitability, as though the object is somehow exactly as it is to be? And if Mad Men were set today, what classics might we see in the offices of a modern-day Don Draper?

Ward Bennett is perhaps best known for his iconic Scissor chair and the curved- back feature of many of his chair designs. Bennett had a keen interest in comfort and functionality, due in part to back injury from a skiing accident. Working with two doctors, Bennett identified the perfect pitch, the ideal angle between the slant of the chair’s back and its seat. Replicated time and again, the pitch became an enduring component of his designs. “Although my reputation rests on designs paired down to the simplest denominator,” said Bennett, “my success comes not from design originality, but from the concept of comfort.”

Girard, who joined Herman Miller in 1950 as director of upholstery and the newly created textile division, furnished the Miller House with pieces from the Herman Miller Collection together with his custom textiles and carpets. The residence is also a sublime example of Alexander Girard’s mastery of the artful collage—combining furniture, fabrics, accessories, and art to create unified and joyful environments.

The Miller House has multiple outdoor living and dining areas created by an extended roof and a continuous travertine floor, blurring the distinction between indoors and outdoors. Girard, faced with furnishing these spaces, noted to Charles Eames the lack of high-quality outdoor furniture. Charles and Ray and the Eames Office responded by designing an innovative group of chairs with aluminum frames tautly supporting a continuous plane of plastic cloth.


Herman Miller began producing the Aluminum Group chairs in 1958, originally promoting the chairs as the “leisure group” or alternatively the “indoor-outdoor group.”  The Millers owned some of the first production models. It didn’t take long for the Aluminum Group to move inside exclusively, perhaps due to their lithe form. Now, that distinctive design returns to its place of origin with materials, finishes, and hardware fit for the Miller House terraces and all outdoors. A classic returns to its original environment.

Miller House and Garden is owned and cared for by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Tours at Miller House and Garden are made possible through the Columbus Area Visitors Center.

Employing a range of media, from paint to plywood, the final creations were auctioned off at a Good Design challenge sponsored by the local IIDA and Herman Miller. All of proceeds, more than $9,000, went to Say Si, a San Antonio non-profit providing students an opportunity to develop artistic and social skills in preparation for higher educational advancements.

What was the concept behind the design of 360?
The idea was to do more with less. A typical desk lamp has a two-piece arm with three joints. The design of 360 combines a single arm with just two joints. The head and base rotate, which allows for a full range of motion.

What does this mean for someone using the lamp?
It means they can put the right amount of light right where they need it; 360 allows that in a simple, smooth motion, without compromising ergonomics.

Were there any technical challenges?
I don’t believe an object that sits in such close proximity to person, like a desk lamp, should demand undue attention. With this in mind, we worked hard to hide all of the mechanics, electrical fasteners inside the arm of 360—this was a challenge. The result is a smooth design that I hope people find very inviting.

Check out the video below to seen how 360 moves.