Balance, Design, Products
April 29, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
Where we’ve been this week…
1. Australian Lifehacker’s workspace series for some interiors inspiration.
2. Gizmodo for their app of the day posts.
3. PC World for its inkjet vs laser printer piece.
4. Home Business magazine for their video on organizing your home office.
5. The Republic for an interesting piece on digital nomads. What happens when your home office is your laptop?
6. Supermarket for some cool art – especially this Eames rocker print. Perfect for adding a hit of spring color to your home office.
7. Video from The Architect’s Newspaper where Michael Graves talks about working with George Nelson and designing for Target.
8. On Architecture for their post on a tiny backyard home office.
9. I Heart Luxe for their design coverage.
10. Smashing Magazine for its post on 30 free desktop wallpapers.
Balance
April 28, 2011
By Rebecca Niederlander and Iris Anna Regn
Jan Greenberg is the author of more than ten non-fiction art books for children and young adults with writing partner Sandra Jordan. Their latest book, Ballet for Martha: Making Appalacian Spring, is on the best book’s list of many publications including the
Washington Post and the
Boston Globe. Greenberg and Jordan’s books have been nominated School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, been on Booklist Editors’ Choice, IRA Teachers’ Choice, Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book and every one is an ALA Notable Books. Here she describes how she does it all from a well-lit space amongst tall trees.
All of the Greenberg-Jordan books are featured in the BROODWORK: It’s About Time exhibit.
When I was a teenager growing up in St. Louis, I loved to read and daydream. My favorite class was English. We talked about books. We wrote poems and stories. After that, it was all downhill, except for lunch. When the noon bell rang, I would stow my books on top of the lockers. My friends could identify my pile because of the papers sticking out every which way and the uneven stack of books ready to tumble down. My room at home wasn’t much better. Clothes lying in heaps, wastebasket overflowing, movie magazines, photos of Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, and novels piled on the desk. It wasn’t until after I was married and had children that I became a neatness freak. If you come to my house now, you’ll notice that both the art and the décor are fairly minimalist. The first and second floors are all orderly and carefully arranged much like in our living room, below.
Here is the ideal study to go with the aesthetic of my house – spare, and pristine, paperless and modern.
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Design, Products
April 28, 2011
By Rebecca Niederlander and Iris Anna Regn
One of the tremendous joys of working with Herman Miller as Lifework contributors is the possible interweaving of creative endeavors.
Our art and design collaboration, BROODWORK, has an exhibition called “It’s About Time” opening at Otis College of Art and Design this Saturday (April 30, 4-6 pm). The show explores the synthesis between family and the creative process. The photo above gives you just a little taste of what to expect.
One of the participants is an Irish artist named Eamon O’Kane (pictured in his studio below). His interactive installation work, A History of Play, relates the teachings of Friedrich Froebel. Froebel’s teaching methods influenced some of the most brilliant designers – including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ray and Charles Eames. In fact, you’ll see quite a bit of Herman Miller furniture throughout the exhibition.
We want to thank Herman Miller for the generous loan of the Eames pieces. Having such references that link the inter-generational nature of family and creativity is integral to this installation.
If you live in Los Angeles, please join us at the opening and make sure to introduce yourselves. And for the next month and a half we will be featuring the workspaces of some of the incredible participants in this exhibition. We very much look forward to sharing these with you.
Balance, Design, Products, Technology
April 28, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
The humble laptop sleeve is a tool that is not often thought about. Most are carelessly thrown in our bags and hardly get a glance. Yet, laptop sleeves are vital to protecting computers from a verity of nasty fates that can befall a laptop in transit. Below we have compiled some of our favorite sleeves, our criteria for selecting them, and why a laptop sleeve is a must.
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Balance, Design, Products, Technology
April 27, 2011
By Amy Feezor
In his role at Herman Miller, John Kim is responsible for helping communicate all the company does to build a better world. Find out what’s currently playing in this dad-to-be’s workspace. (P.S. We particularly like the piece of art he has hanging there. John’s brother-in-law Driscoll Reid had a hand in creating it.)
What do you listen to while you work? I listen to a lot of different stuff including NPR (even during the pledge drive—I know…that’s love), upbeat guitar-driven jazz like Wes Montgomery, something fun like LCD Soundsystem, and albums to which I know most of the words, like most of the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists or Wilco catalog. Also, my wife and I are expecting our first kid and we finally took the time to scour our iTunes catalog and make some fun mixes for the baby, so shuffling through the playlists have taken over lately.
How do you listen? If I’m home alone, I’ll listen to NPR on the radio or the iPod via an iPod dock. If I need quiet, I’ll listen through JVC noise-canceling headphones.
Do you have any favorite music websites/providers? I also enjoy Pandora, but I find that the selection gets a bit repetitive on the free version.
Does music influence your work? Yes, but not in a visual way. I think it just allows me to concentrate and get lost in my work.
Where do you find music recommendations? Who influences your musical taste? To stay on top of what’s new and good, I’ll get recommendations from my friend Brent and my friend Amanda, who is a music writer for the New York Times, Pitchfork, Spin and others. I’ve trusted her musical taste since middle school.
JOHN’S PLAYLIST
Too Late to Turn Back, El Michels Affair
Red and Purple, The Dodos
Little Lion Man, Mumford & Sons
Award Tour, Tribe Called Quest
Home, LCD Soundsystem
Parallel or Together?, Ted Leo and The Pharmacists
How Low, Jose Gonzalez
Start a War, The National
The Afterlife, YACHT
Juveniles, The Walkmen
Warm Heart of Africa, The Very Best
The Boy with the Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian
West Coast Blues, Wes Montgomery
Images: John Kim
Design, Products
April 26, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
I came across this simple office space on Remodelista this morning. That black Eames Molded Plastic chair looks amazing with all the white around it. Not sure how ergonomic the set up would be though!
Technology
April 26, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
Do you own and use different digital cameras/video recorders with different memory card formats? Different memory cards can be a pain, since they require their own unique reader or a cables to connect to transfer images or videos to your camera (perhaps a strong argument for the Eye-Fi card). All-in-one card readers can take the pain out of the equation by allowing you to use the front loading slots for several kind of memory cards.
BlackBox Multi-Plus Card Reader Compatible with USB 2.0 and offering a transfer rate of 480 Mbps, this card reader supports plug and play and it’s hot swappable. We like the fact they’ve included a USB cable (not always the case) and supports CompactFlash, IBM Microdrive, SmartMedia, SecureDigital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro.
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Balance, Design
April 25, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
Steve Frykholm has been at Herman Miller for more than 40 years. He is our creative director and the vice president of design. And now he is also an AIGA Gold Medal award winner. We ran an interview with Steve back in September but you can listen to him being interviewed by Design Observer’s Debbie Millman here. She nabbed him after the design awards in New York for a chat about his long and illustrious career.
Above is a photo of Steve (centre) with photographer Juergen Nogai and David Lai, creative director of Hello Design. Steve was in Los Angeles directing a shoot for our new online store. I got to see him in action and came away with a whole new respect for his vision.
Photo via Hello Design’s blog.
Balance, Design
April 25, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
I came across this work space on Etsy. It’s the Chicago home of photographer Debbie Carlos. You can read an interview with Debbie here. The light from those windows is wonderful.
Balance, Design, Products
April 22, 2011
By Cerentha Harris
As a company we’re proud of our commitment to the environment. Did you know we’ve set a goal to get to a zero operational footprint by 2020? You can read more about that here. My favorite ‘green’ story is beautifully told in the video below. It’s a story of a green building (pictured above), wasps, bees and lots of sweet honey.
The GreenHouse mentioned in the video was designed by architect William McDonough in 1995. This is where our Aeron, Mirra, Embody, SAYL and Setu chairs are produced. And it’s where my boss has her office. I’ve spent a bit of time in this building – summer and winter – and I can attest to its comfort. The temperature always feels just right and the natural light that streams onto the factory floor makes for a beautiful workspace.
Happy Earth Day!