Illinois-based graphic designer Karla C. won the Eames rocker hand-painted by Mark Giglio (above and below). We asked her what she most liked about the design,”I like everything about Eames, the rocker is very comfortable plus it is an incomparable design. I am a graphic designer and my husband is an industrial designer, we’ve liked Eames design for a long time. Plus my girls love to sit on it and they take turns to read on it, another plus! I will keep it in my living room, so everyone who comes to visit can see it.” Has she ever won anything before? “This is the first time, and it was a EAMES ROCKER, I can’t believe it!”

How did the others winners feel? Tristan K., who won the Eames Hang it All had this to say:

You can see the full list of winners here. (Click contest winners at the top of the page).

I’d like to thank all the artists involved for sharing their talent and time and energy. Mark Giglio, Phil Lumbang, Christopher Lee, Josh Cochran and Andrew Holder. Amazing work from all of you.

And good luck to all our entrants!

It’s been a blast!

Our Design for You competition is winding down. Next week, next Tuesday to be exact, will be the final day you will be able to enter to win one of the five painted Eames rockers. Plus the person with the most friends and family who have signed up will win an Aeron chair. But now time is really of the essence. You’ve got until November 2 – next Tuesday. Get onto it!

Below is a splint proudly displayed on the living room wall of freelance writer Bill Robinson. You can read the full story on his favorite wedding present here.

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I moved from Pasadena to Eagle Rock about five months ago.  It is only about six miles away from my the old place but somehow it feels more “LA” to me.  I work from home so my studio consists of a spare bedroom and a garage which I have yet to take advantage of.  Eventually (hopefully soon) I plan on doing all of my printing and painting out of the garage but since moving here I have mostly been doing work for clients so there hasn’t really been a need to set it up.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My style tends to be very graphic.  Geometric and organic shapes combined with a lot of different textures. Partly due to the fact that a lot of my work is screen-printed. Aesthetically, it’s kind of hard to say since I jump around a lot but it definitely has a nostalgic or retro quality to it.  I have heard my work be described as future folk before but I am not entirely sure what that means.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? Shelves, lots of shelves and drawers.  Basically anywhere I can hide things.  Having a garage is great, I no longer have printers and power tools looming over my head waiting to attack with the next earthquake.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? The windows, though they are great and provide good lighting, swing inward and make it difficult to put furniture anywhere.  My desk and shelving are where they are because they have to be.  The mid wall light fixtures don’t help the situation either.

What do you most love about your space? The old beat up wood floors and, contrary to my previous response, the lighting.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do?  What inspired the final design? Well, since I had to finish the piece within a short amount of time I arrived knowing what I was going to do with a mock up in hand.  Admittedly, I was a little freaked out about being filmed but it turned out to be a great experience and I really enjoyed it.  It was good to put faces to names of people whose work I knew and admired.  The design I came up with based on the tag line of “for a better world around you”. I knew I wanted it to be simple and have something to do with nature so I came up with the bird/peacock design. It seemed to work well with the form of the chair.

What inspires you? Everything.  People, places, events etc.  I try to get out of the studio, experience new things and break routine as much as possible.  Sitting within four walls all day can be quite mind numbing.

Here’s the fourth in our interviews with the artists who painted the Eames’ rockers for the competition. Dave Cuzner interviewed the Oakland-based artist Mark Giglio for us back in January. We revisit his studio to hear about the experience of working on a classic piece of furniture.

How long have you worked in your current studio? My studio is in Oakland California and I’ve been here for almost 9 years. Soon I’ll split my time between here and my new home studio. I’m mostly doing graphic design work out of my studio because it’s a small space in an apartment. Then at my home studio I’ll have a wood shop and printing area. I’m really excited to be able to do a lot more with the two spaces.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? Before I would have said limited space. But now I tend to only think about making a new desk for my home studio and what materials I’ll make it out of. And how I can build out my home work space to be modular so I can easily go from wood shop to print shop to painting studio.

What do you most love about your space? That it’s my personal space with all the things I like being around. My projects, my books and things I’ve collected on my travels. They are all there. I often spend a good amount of my time freelancing in other people’s offices so I really appreciate coming back to my own space. It’s really nice having a personal space to experiment and work in.

Describe your style? Graphic and simple.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? Bookshelves and organized piles. I like things to be organized or categorized in a certain way and found piles and bookshelves work best for me. That way things are out in sight and I know right where everything is. Clutter distracts me so my space is usually very organized. My laptop is pretty much like my surroundings, over organized. Everything is hidden in a folder in a folder in a folder.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Being apart of the ‘Design for You’ project was really awesome. I’ve been an Eames fan for a long time so getting to work on a rocker was really cool. My final design was inspired by the rocker itself and from the creative brief which was to design something around Herman Miller’s motto “For a better world around you”. I sat and thought a lot about how a rocker might be used before I started sketching. The thing that stuck with me the most was story telling, how a mother might be rocking her child and talking to it. Which then lead to how important it is for us to all talk and share things. To pass on environmental wisdom to one another so we can build a better world around us. Once I had my concept I sketched things out and finalized my design about two days before painting the chair. Then the last thing I did the day before the shoot was make my cushion. Cut the pattern from my scrap fabrics and sew them together.

What inspires you? Learning about new processes to make something with, exposing myself to new things through travel, going to museums and libraries, meeting new people and friends. Trying to learn and expose myself to new things, I think that is what keeps me inspired the most. And also always wanting to make something new. I really love making things and that ultimately is what keeps me going.

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I left my job last October to work as a full-time freelance illustrator. My studio is the second bedroom in the townhouse that I rent.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I experiment with a lot of different styles and don’t really feel bound by just one. My favorite style to work in usually mixes handmade textural qualities, muted color palettes, simple characters and type. I would describe my aesthetic as minimal but with whimsical undertones.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? I shove all of my paperwork under the rug! I actually wish I had more formal places for things. My closet is fairly messy but all of my pens, paper, packing supplies and other various things I use on a daily basis are close at hand. Actually my whole office is organized chaos because I like to fill my space with as much inspiration as possible. It’s a little messy in that regard but I have a whole house that I can keep clean. In regards to my computer, I find FontExplorer X Pro invaluable for organizing my fonts. I’ve tried other programs in the past, but this one takes the cake for me.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do?  What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair presented a bunch of different challenges for me. This was the first time I’ve ever painted anything. That was was probably the biggest hurdle for me to get over. I sketched the piece first and then brought it into Illustrator where I planned the colors and finalized the composition. I printed out the illustration and started mixing colors and writing down the ratios so that when it came time to painting the actual chair I could focus on just the painting part. I was inspired by the idea of a shepherd in nature. An entity of sorts that guides and oversees all that is living.

What inspires you? I really dig the mid-century modern furniture and architecture. There was just so much design history during that period. I’m also a fan of this DIY “Etsy” movement that is influencing a lot of things these days. My girlfriend is always a constant inspiration along with our Boston Terrier, Ponzu.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? I wish I had more space. Everything is pretty cozy at the moment.

What do you most love about your space? I love my vintage 80’s/early 90’s toy collection. The corner that my desk is situated in is my own little nostalgic retreat. If I’m feeling stressed all I have to do is glance at something and I’m transported back to 1989.

It’s amazing what a good desk lamp can do nowadays. The Leaf Light works hard on a number of levels. It’s an elegant design that uses as little material as possible with 96% of the finished object being recyclable. Its LED system allows you, with the slide of a finger, to change the light from warm to cool. And, as with all Behar’s work, it looks good. To enter to win simply leave your email address here and we will place you in the draw for the light and all the upcoming prizes.

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I have worked at my studio for almost 3 years. It’s an old pencil factory buildling in Brooklyn that has been divided up into smaller studios. I work as an illustrator for a pretty wide range of clients in advertising, editorial and television.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My work is linnear, graphic and obsessive. My drawings are influenced by comics, vintage children’s books, woodblock prints and contemporary graphic design. I work primarily with a pencil on paper, sometimes I paint, sometimes I silkscreen but overall, I try to keep my process pretty simple.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? My space is not huge so I have to be good about how I organize things. I’ve had a couple of desks built with custom shelving around it which has helped with storage. It also helps me have different work stations for when I work on digital things versus analog messy work. At times the computer can be a real distraction so having it on a different surface from my drawings helps a lot. I have a dry rack for prints and flat files to store larger work. On the computer I love using programs like iCal and Excell for managing clients and deadlines and Dropbox for file organization.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? I would probably add another table and more shelving. Right now I have these book shelves built into my drawing desk and it would be nice to have more room for my growing piles of books.

What do you most love about your space? I love the large custom tables I helped build. They were originally meant to be used for silkscreen but I just spread everything out on it.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair was an incredible experience! I didn’t have a whole lot of time to paint something super intricate so I decided to limit my colors to black and a bright magenta. I prepped a bit for the chair here in my studio by working out sketches of each of the little vignettes. The final design was really inspired by the shape of the chair, I wanted it to be organic to mirror the form. We were also by the theme we were given “Making the world a better place” which inspired me to come up with something fun.

What inspires you? Living here in Brooklyn, surrounded by a ton of talented and ambitious people really inspires me on a daily basis.

But first a bit of background: Frykholm, who is Herman Miller’s Creative Director, VP and recipient of the 2010 AIGA Medal, has been in charge of forming Herman Miller’s image and graphic identity over the past 40 years. One of the many tasks he took on was to design a poster every year for the company’s annual picnic. He produced 20 posters between 1970 to 1989.

Over the years the posters have won critical acclaim and been included in exhibitions and collections all over the world including the New York Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Danish Museum of Decorative Art, and the Library of Congress. The posters often surface on Ebay fetching anywhere from a $150 to $700. While a full set of posters went for $7000 at a New York auction in 2009.

Clark Malcolm: When you started working at the company the picnics were a real big event right?

Steve Frykholm: They were a real event and that’s all caps. It was a big deal to the employees and their families. They hired me in February of 1970 and Joe Schwartz came in and said to me, ‘Now you are our first internal graphic designer  could you design a poster for the picnic. Would you?’ And I said sure, it sounds like fun. He said, ‘Well the name of the picnic this year is sweet corn festival.’

CM: Why did they call it that?

SF: It was one of the few that had a name. But, you know, who was I to challenge it. I was the new kid on the block and I knew a little bit about screen-printing. They really just needed them to put up around the buildings. There was another designer working with me at the time, his name was Phil Mitchell. I said, ‘Why don’t we just do an ear of corn? I will stick it in my mouth and you draw it.’ So we did. And I cut the stencils and we had the screens made and printed them after hours down in the basement because the fumes were pretty intense coming from the ink.

Read on for the rest of the interview.

CM: Did you print them from in the basement at Herman Milller for 20 years?

SF: No – then what happened was we entered the poster into a competition but we didn’t read the small print which said it must be done in editions of 500 or more. We’d only done 50. So I went to my boss and told him and he said if you get in we’ll print 500. So we got in and he kept his word and we printed 500 commercially. They were so popular employees bought them. And then we had a budget to do more the following year. And I kept on going for 20 years and the same company printed them for us up until last year.

That started the tradition of doing food and something served at the picnic. I always viewed it as the view of the Lilliputians because the images were bigger than life and somewhat abstract. And that’s how it started.

CM: How did you decide to blow up the images?

SF: Don’t know, don’t remember. It just felt good. You know, we had these big red lips and these white teeth and this yellow ear of corn. And it happened to be me my mouth but it could have been anyones.

CM: You know, I always thought one of the nicest things about that series was it always presented an interesting view of details. Details have always been an important part of the company and its values and here it was taken literally. You know, you want to see a detail; I’ll show you a detail!

SF: Ha! I usually worked from some sort of photographic model sometimes I’d Xerox things. But I would always have to blow them up bigger than life. You know the other wonderful thing about doing them is nobody passed muster on them except for me. No committees passing judgment, no picnic committee reviews.

CM: From the very first?

SF: Yep, from the very first. Ralph Caplan always teased me because I treated them more as a commemorative rather than an announcement. And the one reason I did was that I had other work to do but you know I always made it by the picnic but sometimes barely.

CM: But people didn’t depend on you to let them know it was coming?

SF: Look if you are going to get half a chicken and a whole lot of sides for you and your family, is a poster going to get you to the picnic? No way!

CM: Did people get to take them home?

SF: If they took them off the walls. Other than that they had to purchase them. We’d charged nominally above cost – we didn’t want to make money we just wanted to have revenue to make the next one.

CM: Were these the first posters you ever did?

SF: I’ve done a few. I did posters when I was in college and stuff. And also at Cranbrook. I really liked to screen-print. I wanted to keep my hand in it. I had learned to screen-print when I was in the Peace Corps in Nigeria. In fact I’ve thought ‘Did I do these posters because I learnt how to screen-print in Peace Corps?’ You know I wonder.

CM: What part do you think the posters had in creating a culture of creativity in the ’70s and ’80s? Herman Miller was just a hopping place.

SF: You know I think they contributed to it. It used to bother me a lot when people thought that was all I did for the company. I’d respond ‘You know, man what a fantastic job – I only do one poster a year!’ [For an excellent slideshow of Frykholm's work check out the AIGA site].

CM: So why did you stop?

SF: I was happy to finish at 20 rather than 19 or 21 and I was running out of food themes. I mean how many are there? I passed the baton. Then I started looking at the sales report. In the early days we’d reprint two or three or sometimes four times. The last year we only sold 18. Brian [Walker, CEO] wanted to keep them going but I showed him the sales report and we just weren’t getting any return for the effort. His cycling jerseys were more popular, so why not focus on those. And he accepted that argument even though they were important to the culture; the posters had run their course. I mean we had a great run – 35 years or something like that?

CM: People can still buy them right?

SF: I don’t think so. We used to sell them here at Herman Miller but we don’t do that anymore. You can find the originals on Ebay sometimes. I still have a modest few in my files. I have 12 complete sets. I collected them thinking I’d give them to museums. I might sell a few myself. I hope I never need to!

How long have you both worked from home? And where is home? We are two members of the band Mnemonic Sounds, a Portland based electronic-indie-pop band. Megan and I both work from our respective homes but did most of our writing, recording, and producing at my home studio located in the heart of the downtown Portland in a neighborhood known as Nob Hill.

Megan and I are both working musicians, fresh off of recording our debut album together, entitled Muscle Memories. We worked on this album in my upstairs home studio space for the last year and half.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? With the challenge of having to record live instruments and vocals within a room not really designed for sonic clarity, it took some imagination and cleverness on our part to turn a loft like room with lots of windows and a tin roof overhead into a space in which we could come away with quality, clear recordings. Since our music contains quite a bit of electronic instrumentation with synthesizer bass sounds, keyboards, and drum samples, the real challenges came when we had to record live vocals or guitars in such an open space.  Since the area is so open and hardly insulated, we ended up using the corridors that divide the open loft-like space into 3 different sections to funnel and in essence create an isolation booth in which we could record. What the loft space did offer was a vibrant, well-lit space that let in a great deal of natural sunlight which made recording much more of a pleasurable undertaking; a stark contrast to most recording spaces that require no windows and are usually sealed tight.

As musicians how do you keep your studio organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? It can easily become an indistinguishable tangle of cords and more cords when trying to keep a home studio organized and running.  In general, we would label and organize all the various types of chords and instruments on hooks in columns to keep them separate and identifiable.   Same with the instruments – all in their right place.  Often times, recording requires quick changes to the physical setup and a creative moment can get away from you quickly if you don’t have the instruments and cables and hardware set up in a clear fashion.

Program wise, we recorded Muscle Memories on software called Pro Tools, a fairly standardized software for the recording industry.  Additionally we also used Reason, Ableton Live and even Garage Band which are all different types of software for recording and editing music.

As a producer of other artist’s music, I worked primarily from this home recording space on my MacBook Pro with the above mentioned software to record and produce various local artist’s in Portland. Last year I simultaneously recorded two other CD recording projects in the home studio.

When you were setting up the studio what did you have to keep in mind? Designing a recording studio space in a space normally designed for a living room posed quite a few challenges.  Mainly we had to utilize our space in such a manner that allowed us to divide an open area into separate rooms so that the sound coming from the windows and from the engine hum of the computer and all the other recording hardware would not be audible in the space in which we set up microphones to record an electric guitar or a vocal.

For example we would use the sliding pantry door, a bathroom door and a cabinet, along with some blankets to create an makeshift isolation booth.

More often than not, the space would require patience on our part as frequently, birds would sit on our roof and chirp for a half hour at a time, or someone mowing their lawn a block away would be picked up by a vocal mic.

What would you change about your workspace? The home studio is a pretty open space, which gave a nice room amibiance to a lot of the instruments we were recording (ie guitar), but when it came time to record vocals, we had to get creative. Peter had me perched on a bar stool with a microphone enclosed in the kitchen’s food pantry. I became very comfortable with his pantry over time but I suppose if I were to change anything about our workspace, our workspace would include a vocal booth. Double pane windows that still maintained the view would have been nice as well.

What do you most love about your space? At the risk of being redundant, the windows and the great view were really motivating and inspiring especially when you spend ten hour days in the same room as each other and begin to lose sense of time. When it’s dark out, it’s time for a drink!

What inspires you? Megan: I am inspired by artists who can create something beautiful out of nothing. Peter: I am inspired by fellow artists who are able to have a clear vision of something they would like to create while having the drive and discipline to see it through to the finished product.  The creative turned into pragmatic turned into art.  The most inspiring part is when you are able to share your art with someone who can find something in your art that is relatable and invokes a genuine response.

Images: Portrait of Megan Ouchida and Peter Suk by Lindsey Byrnes.

Our Design For You contest continues. Here’s a peek at the work desks of Charles and Ray Eames – the designers behind our next prize, the Hang-It-All. Ray Eames designed a variety of toys and furniture pieces specifically for children, including this wall-hung coat rack in 1953 for Tigrett Enterprises Playhouse Division. It was reissued by Herman Miller in 1994.

Enter to win a Hang-It-All by going to the Design For You contest page.

Below is Charles Eames’ desk. The last image is Ray’s desk. I love the chaos of both workspaces – Ray more so than Charles!

Above: Ray Eames’ desk.

Images via Eames Office.

Andrew Holder‘s design.

Josh Cochran‘s design.

Phil Lumbang‘s work.

Mark Giglio’s rocker.

Christopher Lee’s rocker.

How will it work? The more people who enter, the more prizes are unlocked. Each prize is better than the last. For the grand prize, you could win one of five artist painted Eames Rockers (above left to right: Andrew Holder, Philip Lumbang, Christopher Lee, Mark Giglio, and Josh Cochran). Each chair is one-of-a-kind. Stay posted for interviews with all the artists and sneak peeks of the chairs.

Simply enter your name and email address to be eligible to win. You only need to enter once to be eligible to win throughout the contest.

A drawing takes place each week if we reach the sign-up goal for that week. If we don’t meet the goal, there is no drawing. The contest goes on to the next prize. For a list of all the prizes click here.

Make sure to get all your friends and family to sign up because getting others to enter is another way to win. Get the most people to sign up and you can win an Aeron chair. So enter now and good luck.

The first prize? A signed copy of John Berry’s Herman Miller: The Purpose of Design, with a foreward by Eames Demetrios. According to Berry the idea behind the book was “to support the understanding that design is about problem solving and is broader than just products. The current/second version added three chapters and updated the timeline to 2009.”

“I joined Herman Miller in 1980 as Director of Corporate Communications, later becoming Vice President of Corporate Communications reporting directly to the CEO. That included a range of responsibilities that grew and changed over the years. The archives were under my responsibilities, so I had a good understanding of what was there. My first week was spent with George Nelson who came to Zeeland to provide my orientation.”

“I was also asked to be HMI’s liaison to the Eames Office. Charles had died in 1978. I became close to Ray. She introduced me to Eames Demetrios while he was still a student at Harvard.  I was a frequent visitor to the Eames Office, 901 and the Eames house. When I left HMI in 1996, Eames Demetrios asked if I would become part of the Eames Office to function as their PR consultant and be their liaison back to HMI. I continue in that role today.”