1. Poster Collection 07: Armin Hofmann - Instrumental in the birth of what came to be known as the “Swiss Style,” this is the must-have monograph showcasing the venerable Swiss designer’s landmark poster designs. Pick one up from Barnes & Noble.

2. Free Spit, Dumb Rocks Notebooks, Jonathan Zawada - Creative director Jonathan Zawada is known the world over for his graphic design work in music, fashion, publishing, and more. Creative Superstore Editions presents Jonathan – as well as other noted and emerging artists – in this edition of pocket-size notebooks. Get one at Creative Superstore Editions.

3. Everybody’s Talking, Eda Akaltun - Invited to create brand new work for Then X Ten, London artist Eda Akaltun combines and collages a variety of paper media, drawings, and other ephemera to create her distinctive designs. Post one up in your flat, from Lumas.

4. Chicago Symphony Orchestra Poster, John Massey – As a student intern, Massey met Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann and was forever changed, dedicating himself to design from that day forward. One of countless influential designs, this vintage, silkscreened poster was created for the Chicago Symphony. Get one from Poster Plus.

5. Herman Miller Summer Picnic Poster August 20, 1971, Stephen Frykholm – A pioneer of corporate art with uncompromising design standards, Frykholm molded the visual makeup of Herman Miller for over 40 years. His unmistakable picnic posters for Herman Miller are highly sought-after design classics. Get this giclée reproduction at the MoMA.

6. Cabaret Carol, Emily Forgot poster – Emily Forgot (a.k.a. Emily Alston) opened her own London studio in 2004 and has been creating diverse and unique design work for exhibitions and commercial clients alike, including Adidas, the BBC, GQ, and more. Check out some of her available prints, including “Cabaret Carol,” at her Forgot Shop

Photos linked within the text.

1. This thoughtful interview with industrial designer Yves Béhar (creator of our SAYL chair) from Tastemakers@Google on YouTube.

2. “30 Eye-Catching Interiors Featuring The Iconic Eames Lounge Chair” at Freshome.

3. This tour of Vitamin, a design and marketing firm in Baltimore (via baltimore.citybizlist.com).

4. A look at how tech is creating workplaces everywhere — and shrinking the office — from USA TODAY.

5. “The Wit and Wisdom of Alexander Girard” at Metropolis Magazine.

6. Tips for converting space into a home office from Arizona Daily Star.

7. Back in March, we featured a post on Sinuous Guitars — and we’re glad to see Greg Opatik’s Eames-inspired instruments continuing to create buzz (via Rapid Growth).

8. “The 15 Things Charles and Ray Eames Teach Us” at DARE+.

9. Huffington Post’s photos of the George Nelson exhibit opening this weekend at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

10. Apartment Therapy’s coverage of our Alexander Girard exhibit at NeoCon 2012 (where we were very proud to be recognized with multiple awards).

Photo: Janel Laban for Apartment Therapy

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, the multidisciplinary creative agency Parliament is stocked with pieces by Charles and Ray Eames, including Eames molded plastic side chairs and Eames molded plywood chairs. (Photo: Parliament)

Eames molded plastic side chairs stand at attention in Athens, Greece, at Graphics Garage. (Photo: Graphics Garage)

Designed by Ministry of Design, the Singapore office of Leo Burnett boasts a giant graffiti-style wall portrait of founder Leo Burnett himself. (Photo: Ministry of Design)

Eames molded plywood chairs and coffee tables play nicely with the Aeron office chairs in the studio space of Big Giant, also in Portland. (Photo: The Beege blog)

The airy Boulder, Colorado, office of Crispin Porter + Bogusky features bike-friendly parking. (Photo: This Ain’t No Disco)

A pair of Eames molded plywood chairs welcome guests to the Sydney, Australia, branch of legendary advertising agency Ogilvy. (Photo: Australia Design Review)

A mix of Eames Aluminum Group Management Chairs, Ronald McDonald heads, horse-shaped lighting, foot sculptures, and ball pits make Chandelier Creative one of New York City’s most remarkable workspaces. (Photos: NOTCOT)

For the past few weeks Susan Lyons, our Materials Creative Director, has covered Herman Miller’s five material design principles over on our Discover blog. We’ve heard about honesty, utility, economy, pleasure, and possibility and the role these principles play in helping us choose the materials for our designs.

One principle is particularly relevant to Lifework readers: It’s the idea of utility. Lyons talks about utility in connection to Embody – a chair that finds its way into many a home office. “When we talk about material utility,” Lyons says, “what we really mean is that we use materials to solve problems.”

To hear Lyons talk about the rest of the principles simply follow these links: honesty, economy, pleasure, possibility.

To find a home office chair check out our tips on how to choose the right one for you. (And FYI – we’re now shipping our most popular office chairs for $29. Read all about that here.)

“There are so many booths that have Eames pieces in them,” said Demetrios. “You expect the plastic chairs but there are DCMs and they are serious chairs to drag around a big space when you don’t have to…I think it’s great.”

Adam Call (the Herman Miller Collection Lead) and I headed out to the floor to do a bit of furniture spotting ourselves and Eames was absolutely right. We were everywhere. As Call said this may very well be our first year here but it looks like we were at Art Basel even before we were at Art Basel!

Top: Eames Molded Plastic Chairs in white with wire bases and art still waiting to be hung. Above: A Nelson Swag Leg Work Table hard at work.

Above: An Enchord desk and moveable storage unit.

Above: Eames Molded Plywood Coffee Table.

Above: More white Molded Plastic Chairs…

Above: A vintage Noguchi table and Eames chairs are right at home with Alvar Aalto’s iconic 3-legged stools.

Above: Eames Molded Plastic chairs around an Eames table.

Above: A rare vintage Eames table with a 5-star base.

From a Lifework perspective it is wonderful to see people “work” the fair. One man sank into an Eames Lounge Chair and pulled out his iPad and began furiously typing. A photographer spread out on the Tuxedo sofa and started downloading images to a laptop perched on the Noguchi.

Jack Schreur, Vice President of The Herman Miller Collection wandered the halls with me this morning before the crowds arrived. “The big theme is this  - this is not about what used to be.  Our presence here is about taking some of the most amazing pieces of furniture in the world and contemporizing them, showing how they live and work today. We arrange our technology around us instead of the other way around  - it fundamentally opens up opportunities for all of this great furniture. It didn’t work great when you had to put an IBM Selectric out there to do your work but now … look at this.” Schreur points to a group leaning over a laptop, each perched comfortably on a Setu chair upholstered in deep red.

Look out for more Art Basel and Design Miami coverage over the next few days.

1. Four – as in four-legged friends. It takes a lot to get me to linger on a pet’s site so this wonderfully designed doggy destination was a surprise. Check out their post on Kuntzel+Deygas who painted the Eames chair below.

2. Designer Alvin Aronson‘s site for this cool prototype of a perfectly white digital clock.

3. Design Milk for their post on this pencil holder from Giha Woo.

4. Swissmiss for her post on Instagram – an obsession I share. It’s a lithe little bit of social media perfect for capturing just about everything and now it looks like the pics can be accessed more easily, making it an even better work tool.

5. Cool Hunting for the story on all-natural cleaning porducts. Perfect for getting that desktop sparkling.

6. Wallpaper magazine for their lovely “Letter from Japan” architecture update. Below – House in Seya, Kanagawa, by Suppose Design Office.

7. Design Applause‘s coverage of Belkin’s green power strip.

8. Dwell’s excellent “Small Spaces” series (the house below is the most recent addition to the series).

9. A Brief Message for Hugh Graham’s short essay on design – “We have the opportunity and the responsibility to create a world where each object and experience is filled with value, where living with less but better is both joyful and meaningful.” We couldn’t agree more.

10. Field Notes new red notebooks. I use these little notebooks in the car and always have one on hand in my purse. Nicely designed, small and light weight.

I also mentioned at the beginning of summer that we would be offering Magis pieces. Well, you will now find Konstantin Grcic’s Chair_One at the Herman Miller store. This is an iconic piece of design that we are proud to include in our furniture collection.

Look out for more on these pieces in the coming weeks.

David Foster put together a slideshow over on Discover to give you a visual history of the iconic logo. Check it out here and you’ll see there is still a clear connection to the original “M” that Irving Harper designed so beautifully in 1946.

Magis works a lot like Herman Miller in that they partner with outside designers. Who have they worked with? The list is a who’s who of the design world – look out for pieces by Richard Sapper, Jasper Morrison, Stefano Giovannoni, Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic (his Chair_One is pictured above) , Ron Arad, the Bouroullecs, Robin Day, Pierre Paulin, Jerszy Seymour, Naoto Fukasawa, and Thomas Heatherwick. Come check out the Herman Miller booth at Neocon (June 13-15) to see just how our pieces will work with Magis’ designs.

We’ll have a slideshow with images from photographer Paul Warchol - a step up from my iPhone snaps! I think I made Paul a bit nervous waving the phone around but I couldn’t resist posting some pics of us setting up this morning.

“I went to Hawaii in 1939 to do an advertisement (with Georgia O’Keefe). As a result of this, I had met (T.H.) Robsjohn-Gibbings, the furniture designer, who had asked me to do a coffee table for him,” Noguchi remembered. “I designed a small model in plastic and heard no further before I went west.”

Noguchi with his wife Yoshiko (Shirley) Yamaguchi on the veranda of their house and his studio, Kita-Kamakura, Japan, ca. May–December 1952.

Noguchi was Japanese-American and going west refers to his internment in the Poston, Arizona, concentration camp during World War II. While he was interned, Noguchi said he was surprised to see a version of the small plastic model he had done for Robsjohn-Gibbings published as an advertisement for the English designer. “When, on my return, I remonstrated, he said anybody could make a three-legged table,” said Noguchi. “In revenge, I made my own variant of my own table.”

Noguchi and his wife standing outside Charles and Ray Eames’ house.

The “variant” Noguchi designed was used to illustrate an article, written by George Nelson, called “How to Make a Table.” Nelson had seen the table some months earlier at Noguchi’s studio. Dropping in to see his good friend, Nelson found him working on a piece he intended to give his sister for her birthday. Noguchi had cut a piece of scavenged glass for the top and made a base using two identical pieces of wood fitted together by a single pin. Nelson liked the organic shape. By 1947, the table became part of the Herman Miller product line. It reflects Noguchi’s belief that “everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space I consider sculpture.”

“To limit yourself to a particular style may make you an expert of that particular viewpoint or school, but I do not wish to belong to any school,” he said. “I am always learning, always discovering.”

The Noguchi Table with a cherry base.

Photo credits top to bottom: Noguchi at work via Vitra. Noguchi coffee table via Herman Miller Discovering Design. Noguchi and his wife via Unframe. Noguchi outside the Eames house via Architectural Ruminations.

If you’re part of a customer tour of the Design Yard, it’s likely your first stop will be the Parlor, just a few steps from the front door. It’s a great room to relax in, unwind, and have a conversation with Herman Miller folks about your company, your needs, and what’s important to you.

“The Parlor sets the tone,” says Robert Hieftje, Herman Miller’s Customer Experience Senior Manager. “It’s a place of discovery a time of learning for us. After we talk and get to know each other, we’re able to personalize the rest of the customer’s experience at the Design Yard so it’s of most value to them.”

Furnished with a carefully selected mix of Herman Miller furniture, the room looks and feels like home.  A wall of bookshelves holds not only books, but also artifacts from Herman Miller’s legacy: photos of the companies legendary designers like Nelson, Rhode, Girard, Stumpf, and the Eameses; examples of Herman Miller innovation; and a treasure trove of fun conversation pieces.

For example, there’s a beautiful wooden envelope from the Hall family of Hallmark Cardsfame, given in recognition of Herman Miller’s and Hallmark’s 40-years of working together.

Via Bill Holm at Discover.

We were kept out of the audience – it wouldn’t look good if I took a seat from a ‘real’ audience member now would it!

So I watched from the green room as Ellen had Hilary Swank guess a mystery word.

Once she’d guessed it (it was gummy bears) the audience were rewarded with a Setu chair. You can watch the show here.

It was such a thrill to be part of all that energy and well-wishing. Ellen gave away over $3000 worth of gifts to each audience member. And the audience was ecstatic. In the line to get to our cars after the show the woman in front of me turned around, wide-eyed and said “There wasn’t a second of down time. Where does she get all her energy?” I didn’t have an answer. But I knew that we were just the first show. Ellen was taping Monday’s show right after ours. Two shows back-to-back on Thursdays. Makes for an intense work week but one that gives you a bit of down time on a Friday!

And if you see anything you like we’ve collected all the pieces that appeared on the show here.

Let us know what you think about the new site. It’s always good to hear from you.

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.

“Herman Miller’s former President and CEO Max DePree once advised us all to “make room for people who have unusual and creative gifts.” Enter ArtPrize—the international art show and competition based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids is a burgeoning city that is making its mark among design and innovation circles. It also happens to be minutes away from our Zeeland headquarters.

ArtPrize provides us a fantastic opportunity to support creativity within our local community. In fact, we’ll be sponsoring a central resource center for ArtPrize called The Hub, which is located downtown in the Old Federal Building. From September 22 to October 10, The Hub will host a visitor center, voter registration area, artist lounge, and volunteer offices—all furnished with our products.

ArtPrize and its prize money—totaling $449,000—have proven to attract a tremendous amount of talent and votes, but they also attract a community excited about art and its city. It’s a great event and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.

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 worked in your current studio? And where is it? Well, I work out of my apartment, but I have a pretty big balcony where I can paint and get all my work done. My place is only a few block from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and I’ve been here for about a year.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? Simple is best. Bold black lines and a sense of wonder. I have these characters that I always draw; bears, birds, and elephants mostly. I like to keep them very iconic and easily recognized.

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? Oh boy, I’m probably the most unorganized person I know. Paint, brushes, paper everywhere, but in that pile of mess I know where everything is! My computer is the same way, I just toss everything on my desktop. Luckily there is a fancy search feature for when I forget where things are. I have a degree in graphic design so Photoshop and Illustrator are some of my favorite programs to use.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? MORE SPACE!

What do you most love about your space? It’s outdoors and I can work in the sunshine.

What inspires you? Cartoons are my biggest inspiration. Anything thats makes me smile. And just having a crazy imagination.

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 really fun. I am use to painting on flat surfaces and it was a welcomed changed. I’ll be honest I didn’t have anything planned out, I had a loose idea in my head but kept adding things as I went. First I put down white as a primer but as soon as the white hit the blue I thought it looked pretty awesome. Then I went on from there. The final design is a bear sitting down in a snow-capped valley with chocolate syrup being poured down the mountains… I really dont know how it turned out that way… I guess I was hungry!

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.”

The book also explores the worth of things, the making things, the greed imperative, planned obsolescence, and even fetish objects, all the while using product examples from companies like Nike, Bling H2O, and Herman Miller.

He was inspired to include Herman Miller in the book not just because of the iconic nature of some products but also because of the company’s values, including the way it embraced design early and for the right reasons, its emphasis on durability (the 12-year warranty), and sustainability. And he admires the way the company engages external designers. It’s a great way, he says, for the company to get “a fresh perspective every time.”