Less than one percent of all businesses last long enough to celebrate their hundredth birthday—a distinction we’re proud to have achieved. Along the way, Herman Miller has focused on design and worked with some talented designers. As a result, we have some good design stories.

Did you know a focus group of seniors led Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick to design the Aeron chair? Or that a back injury helped Bob Propst imagine systems furniture? Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller is an opportunity to learn how chance conversations and everyday experiences were the catalysts for products that have defined the way we live and work.

The exhibit’s next stop is the Austin Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. Please stop by if you’re in the area.

“When you look at needs and problems, you aren’t inhibited by the market constraints,” says John Berry, guest curator of the exhibit. “It’s very much about understanding a need and meeting that need and creating, as Herman Miller often does, a brand new market.”

The exhibit is the result of a collaboration between the Muskegon Museum of Art (MMA) and The Henry Ford Museum, which houses the largest collection of Herman Miller products in the world. Since its opening at the MMA, Good Design has traveled to four cities: St. Paul, Minnesota; Dearborn, Michigan; Syracuse, New York; and lately, San Angelo, Texas. Wherever it goes, the reception has been enthusiastic.

“Even in San Angelo, in the middle of Texas, the opening attracted 600 people,” says Berry.

“I find that people can relate to the exhibit because these are items that are in the common vernacular,” he adds. “When you see a plastic shell chair that you probably sat on in school, you can say, ‘Oh, that was an Eames design.’ You understand that this chair wasn’t the result of casual decisions. It required serious, robust research to meet real needs.”

The exhibit is scheduled to open at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, from January 29, 2011, to April 3, 2011. Additional stops include Austin, Texas; Midland, Michigan; Chattanooga, Tennessee; San Francisco, California; and Kalamazoo, Michigan, before it ends in 2013.

If you weren’t able to make it to the “Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller” exhibit at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the next best thing would be to visit The Henry Ford online. The museum is the lead institution for the Herman Miller Consortium, a group of 13 museums throughout the U.S. that share approximately 800 Herman Miller artifacts in their collections.

Herman Miller established the Consortium in 1988 to share our historical product collection that had been accumulating as part of our corporate archives in Zeeland, Michigan. In addition to the furniture pieces, it also includes a large quantity of product literature.

The Ford website houses the Consortium’s huge image database cataloging hundreds of Herman Miller products with photo, name, circa date, designer, and where you can see the actual piece. It’s a great way to learn more about Herman Miller, our history, our products, and our designers–especially if you don’t live near one of the 13 museums that belong to the Consortium.

“With Herman Miller operating in our back yard,” Hayner says, “it is important for the Museum to hold up and examine the process of design as its been practiced in West Michigan for nearly eight decades. We decided to focus on case studies that explore design problems and solutions created by some of the talented artists who have created masterpieces of modern design for the company, and continue to do so today.”

The case studies—or “stories”—were chosen to embody four different active characteristics of “good design,” as a result of the problem-solving ethos of Herman Miller:
Ergonomics (Seating) – Good Design Explores
White Collar Work (Action Office) – Good Design Inquires
Graphic Communications – Good Design Engages
Mid-Century Classics – Good Design Endures

Guest curator John R. Berry, explains the organization of the exhibition: “Each object grouping started with identifying a need—to furnish a new type of living space, for healthier seating, to effectively communicate a message, or to support new kinds of work.” The inspiration for the exhibition came from his recent book, Herman Miller: The Purpose of Design.

The exhibition uses drawings, models, prototypes, photographs, oral histories, and original designed objects to showcase the creation and evolution of many masterpieces of 20th and 21st century design by such artists as Gilbert Rohde, Ray & Charles Eames, George Nelson, Alexander Girard, Robert Propst, Steve Frykholm, Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, and others.

By Marcia Davis