George Nelson described moments of creative inspiration as “zaps”—and he had a lot of them over his 50-year career. One led to the Storagewall, the first modular storage system. The groundbreaking design caught the attention of Herman Miller founder D.J. De Pree, who asked Nelson to be our director of design. As Nelson noted admiringly that Herman Miller “is not playing follow-the-leader,” he helped us shepherd design into the modern era.