Herman Miller Box Art 101

Step 1: Flatten the box your Herman Miller Chair arrived in.

Step 2: Collect colorful medium to express yourself and head outside.

Step 3: Create!

Matt & Aeron, Day Five.

Hey everyone- this is my last day talking about the Aeron Chair. I think I've touched on its major points- the lumbar support, the Pellicle fabric, the adjustable arms... Today I just want to mention a few things about the overall design. To start, I have to just express that this is a cool looking chair. The guts of it (underneath the seat) has a lot going on, but the back, the seat pan, and the base are all very sleek looking. It's a chair that actually has a distinct profile, which is pretty neat.

I do have a couple of things- you may call them complaints- about the Aeron. Herman Miller has improved on these issues with the Mirra and Embody Chairs, both of which have been introduced since the Aeron Chair. The first issue pertains to the Aeron Chair's back frame. The perimeter of the back is made of hard plastic; so the back feels soft and giving as you move up the Pellicle back- that is- until you hit the rigid frame. For this reason, it's important to get the size that fits you right. Aeron comes in 3 sizes to fit the vast majority of the population. If you get a size A and you need a size B, your shoulder blades will hit the frame and make you unhappy. The rigid frame also prevents you from twisting free spiritedly (quite the adverb) in the chair- something you come to expect once you've sat in the Embody Chair, and to a lesser extent- the Mirra Chair.

The second issue I have is with the tension mechanism for the recline. Maybe I'm just lazy and like to lean back in my chair too much, but I think the Aeron Chair is a little bit too serious about keeping you upright in a traditional tasking posture. You can recline, but you kind of have to work for it, otherwise Aeron will tilt you forward again.

I don't want to sound like I don't like the chair; the only reason I noticed the rigid frame is that we have different sizes around the office so I tried all of them, which is how I found that I'm not comfortable in a size A. And the thing with the twisting- I think this is just me being spoiled after sitting in an Embody Chair- a chair designed to let you twist. This feature has just come out in the last couple of years- and the Aeron Chair was introduced way back in '94. That's about all I have to say on the Aeron Chair- I hope you learned something new.

Matt & Aeron, Day 4

Today, I'm gonna talk about the Aeron Chair's arms. They're pretty important, as a good office chair is not a good office chair at all if the arms are lacking. I've been sitting in two different Aeron Chairs for the last couple of days- one of which is slightly better than the other in the armpads department. The first chair I sat on had leather armpads, and the one I'm currently sitting in does not. Alas. The leather armpads are better. They're soft to the touch, and they look just plain nicer than the standard armpads. The Aeron's standard armpads look and feel OK- they have a pleasant, spongy feel to them that's like a soft rubber. But they're not leather. The leather armpads look more inviting and are definitely more relaxing rest your arms on when you want to lean back into the Pellicle of your Aeron Chair.

Another aspect of the Aeron Chair that should be covered is adjustability. The Aeron has loads of options- which is a lot to think about, but the options let you buy just what you want to pay for. Which is nice. Anyway, one option I would strongly recommend are the adjustable arms. You actually do notice the fixed arm option when you're sitting in it, and they just don't live up to the rest of the Aeron Chair. The adjustable arms are much better. The arms swivel in and out and you can adjust the height with a locking lever located behind the arms. The height adjustment mechanism is not overly convenient; you have to flip a lever up, adjust the arm to the height you want, and then lock it back in place, but once you've found the height you want you're pretty much set.

Matt & Aeron, Day Three

Yesterday I covered the PostureFit Lumbar Support that is one of the main options on the Aeron Chair. Today I wanna talk about another unique feature that was pretty groundbreaking at the time. This is the patented Pellicle fabric that was developed by Herman Miller. Pellicle is a breathable, flexible synthetic material that is outstanding in every way- in my opinion, at least.

Breathable is the key for me. Pellicle ventilates extremely well- and it covers the entire seat pan and back. And because Pellicle covers a suspended seat pan on Aeron (meaning its just fabric supporting you, not fabric over a cushion over a solid seat), you're behind and back are pretty much completely exposed to the air. This is a different feel from standard seat pans over foam and generic upholstery, where you can have many stifling inches of materials between you and the open air. Pellicle is so thin you can literally see through it. Also, it feels good to drag your fingernails across and it makes a cool noise similar to a zipper. It's not the softest material out there, but it's not rough at all. It's just not as soft as say, a standard leather or the Embody Chair fabric.

Matt & Aeron, Day Two

So, today I'm going to talk about the PostureFit Lumbar Support on the Aeron Chair. To start, I have to preface by saying that the Aeron Chair really did make an impact on the office furniture scene when it came out in the 1990's. The lumbar support feature was pretty revolutionary in that it was designed to allow you a make small tweaks to the amount of support you felt. Herman Miller has come out with a number of office chairs in that time, but the lumbar support on Aeron still very much holds its own.

There's a little knob underneath the seat on the right side of the chair that has three little grooved prongs sticking out of it, so it's easy to grab, and it's fairly awesome. When I sit back in my seat, I can feel the padded support hitting the lower part of my back, as it should. The level of adjustment is pretty comprehensive, so if you think its a bit intrusive, you can turn the knob as you're sitting back and feel the pressure give. And the best part is, it doesn't really move in increments- you can move it out or back just as much as you want. What I mean is, some adjustment mechanisms have settings, say 1-5, with 1 being no support and 5 being lots of support, and some poor soul might find themselves wishing there were a 3.5 setting. This isn't an issue with the lumbar support on the Aeron Chair. The level of support you feel is only limited by the dexterity of your fingers. I would strongly recommend this feature because it's definitely a strong point of the chair.

Matt & Aeron, Day One

Working at Smart Furniture is kind of like playing musical chairs. You can't ever assume that what you're sitting in today will be what you're sitting in tomorrow. We shuffle chairs around to learn about them; it creates a nice communal feel around the office and gives us an excuse to steal each other's chairs pretty much whenever we please.

And so today, I find myself sitting in the Aeron Chair. Seeing as how this is pretty much the most famous office chair ever created, I'm surprised that it's taken this long for me to land one. This particular version I'm sitting in is a size B, which seems to fit me just fine as I'm 5'11 and skinny; it has leather armpads (nice), and the PostureFit Lumbar Support option.

To start, I'll say that you must make adjustments to your Aeron Chair before you can really get comfortable. This is a task chair through and through- and the hallmark of a task chair is that it has a lot of adjustments available for you to tweak in an effort to custom fit the chair to your person. The Aeron Chair has a back stop and a forward tilt adjustment mechanism that make a big difference in how the chair feels. Tomorrow, I will elaborate on said adjustments.

Meet our Celebrity Judges

With three of the five finalists of the Smart Space Design Contest chosen, SmartFurniture.com announced today the panel of guest judges who will select the $2500 Smart Space Design Contest Grand Prize Winner. The guest judging panel consists of design experts and celebrities from within the design world. The guest judges include: Jason Chen, editor and writer at Gizmodo, one of the web's most prominent blogs covering electronics, technology and industrial design. Known as The "Gadget Guide", Gizmodo offers a tech-hungry audience valuable insights and commentary on new products, from the latest video game to the latest-greatest back-scratcher. As a contributor at Gizmodo, Jason is at the forefront of the convergence between electronics and design. Lisa Hubbs, an executive at Herman Miller® for the Home, co-sponsor of the Smart Space Design Contest. Dozens of Herman Miller products are featured in the Smart Designer, including design icons like the Eames Lounge Chair, Noguchi Table, and Nelson Marshmallow Sofa. Herman Miller produces prizes awarded to each Finalist, including their choice of the Herman Miller Aeron®, Embody®, Mirra® or Setu™ chair. Jaime Derringer, operator of Design Milk, a design-oriented blog that keeps tabs on trends in modern decor, interior design, architecture, furniture, and consumer goods. While she keeps a close eye on major movements and achievements in the design world, she also enjoys telling the world about her favorite newly-discovered everyday items, be it salt-and pepper-shakers or garden tools. She also helps run Bakery, a business incubator that helps get startup companies on their feet. Eames Demetrios, a writer, artist, and principal at the Eames Office, celebrates the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames, as grandparents. Eames educates the public on Charles and Ray Eames’ impact on the world of design through various mediums, including exhibits, photography, and literature. Gifted with a vivid imagination, Eames is the author of Kymaerica and the Kcymaerxthaere, an alternate history of the world. The Smart Space Design Contest is open to everyone. Entrants must design an original space using SmartFurniture.com’s Smart Designer. The Smart Designer is a revolutionary 3D space planning tool that allows designers to create customized spaces from scratch directly through their web browser. The last finalists in the contest will be chosen between March 1st and March 5th, and the Grand Prize Winner will be chosen the following week. More information is available at http://www.smartfurniture.com/smartdesigner.html.

Week Two Winner of the Smart Space Design Contest

Joseph won an Embody Chair for being our week two Smart Space Design Contest winner! He chose to design The Garden Office for those who work from home. The office features three areas, desk, reading nook, and media center. The front wall consists of windows and doors letting in a lot of light and warmth. The natural cork flooring is contrasted with the modern functional furniture. Joseph also blogged about us here encouraging others to enter for a chance to win two more Herman Miller chairs, another Herman Miller chair through Facebook, and the finalist have a chance to win $2,500 to their smart space. Below are his screen shots of his designs. Enter to win your dream space, you have two more weeks left!

Herman Miller's Blog Post on The Gifted Eye

We think of Charles Eames as a great designer but an exhibition that opened last night shows us another side to this talented man - that of photographer. Hosted by Smart Furniture in their Chattanooga, TN showroom a show of 100 photographs by Charles runs until March 4. It was a rather cold evening last night but over 200 design enthusiasts showed up to hear Eames Demetrios talk about Charles and Ray’s design philosophy and enjoy the images. Many of the shots, which cover not just Charles’ work but also his travels and life with Ray, had never been exhibited before. I’m going to see if I can get a slideshow together of at least 20 of the images to post here. But for the moment I can tantalize you with pics of the show before the guests arrived!

Best of Year Awards Put Herman Miller in the Spotlight

Herman Miller's Best of Year Award Winners Last week’s Best of Year Awards—Interior Design magazine’s design competition recognizing superior interior design projects and products in all categories—highlighted three products from Herman Miller: the Envelop desk, the Setu chair, and the Embody chair. Envelop won the Best of Year Award in the Furniture: Contract/Desking & Systems category, while Setu received the award for the Seating: Contract/Conference category. Embody was noted for its Merit Award in the Seating: Contract/Task category. reblogged by Maria Davis

Introducing Setu

ready. SET. go. Smart Furniture introduces the SETU chair by Herman Miller. Design your own in 3minutes. Goal: A work chair that was comfortable, environmentally responsible, stunning to look at, and a perfect fit for the modern office. The designers at Studio 7.5 responded with a chair that met and exceeded every immodest goal: the Setu Chair. New, innovative, precisely engineered, and beautifully designed, the Setu Chair mirrors the rush of technology and the bustle of the modern workplace. It's also designed to deal with the downsides of the modern workplace: long stretches of sitting, working at computers, and fatigue. Every inch of the Setu Chair has been molded and re-molded, finessed, until it has become the ideal chair for the today's office, and the today's worker. The Kinematic Spine is a hyper-responsive, intuitive design element that enables your unlimited and ultra-comfortable movement in the Setu Chair. Designed to look like the human spine, and arranged against the back and seat of the chair as an exoskeleton, it is a transparent, hip and useful piece of furniture design. When you sit in the Setu Chair, it is the Kinematic Spine that allows for your freedom of movement. The Herman Miller Setu Chair is all about transparent design, literally. The elastomeric fabric that serves as the back and seat of the chair is a mesh, allowing for semi-transparency and the free passage of air through the chair.That keeps it cool, in more ways than one. Literally cool in that it prevents the build up of heat that can happen with solid or leather chairs and cause discomfort and sweating, and cool in the way it adds to the technological and aesthetic quality of the chair. The engineers, designers and artists who worked to create the Setu Chair did it with one goal in mind: to make it perfect for you. They succeeded by building a chair that couldn't have been built before, a wonder of modern design.

bridge//table//chairs//Michigan

Grand Rapids, Michigan + bridge + table + chairs, what a site. ArtPrize Artprize has taken over the city, or with this picture above sure has stirred up some buzz. A table and Chairs over a bridge? If only we could do something like that here in Chattanooga, TN with our famous walking bridge (picture below). We could invite the community to build smart shelves as high at the bridge, or turn the bridge into a living room? Either way... Grand Rapids has a good rep for furniture. good furniture. To top it off, One of our most popular product lines, and famous team- Charles and Ray Eames's grandson, Eames Demetrios had permantally installed plaques that represent a global work of three dimensinal storytelling, Kcymaerxthaere.

Smart Furniture Featured on The Week Magazine

Herman Miller's Enchord desk made 'The Best...Modern Desks' article in the Lifestyle section of The Week magazine. The Week placed The Enchord Desk as one of five desks with sleek designs. Check out Herman Miller's Enchord Desk .

Herman Miller Chosen for 2009 Sustainable Business 20 List

Herman Miller is one of 20 global companies that are "changing the world for the better," according to SustainableBusiness.com. The company is featured for the sixth time in the Sustainable Business 20 list as one of the "World's Top Sustainability Stocks," which includes companies with strong environmental initiatives and solid financial performance. It also is highlighted this year as a Corporate Pioneer because of its continued commitment to innovation for the sustainable design of its products and services during an uncertain economy—an aspect that is increasingly viewed as a sign of management excellence. The eighth annual list is included in Progressive Investor, a publication of SustainableBusiness.com that tracks and analyzes green stocks. "Our goal is to create a list that showcases public companies that, even over the past most difficult year, have made substantial progress in either greening their internal operations or growing a business based on an important green technology," says Rona Fried, Ph.D., CEO of SustainableBusiness.com and editor of Progressive Investor. Six of the world's leading green portfolio analysts select companies that contribute substantially to the advance of a sustainable economy through their products or initiatives. The entire Sustainable Business 20 list may be viewed at www.sustainablebusiness.com.

Steelcase and Herman Miller Unveiled New Products at NeoCon

CHICAGO, Ill. -- At the NeoCon 2009 trade show, Herman Miller and Steelcase unveiled some of their newest, and improved, products that are made with recycled material, are recyclable, use less energy, take up less shipping space or help cut down on energy use. Herman Miller's new Setu chairs are designed as multipurpose chairs - for use in places like conference rooms - but they are made for people to spend longer periods of time in. The chair is made with one continuous seat and back, and the only adjustment it has is for seat height, leaving it with fewer parts and weighing less than 20 pounds. The chairs contain 48 percent recycled content, are 92 percent recyclable, and are seeking Cradle to Cradle and Greenguard certification. The company has also announced its Energy Manager, a system that can control two of the four circuits of power that feed into a group of workstations, providing quick and easy power management to individuals. The Energy Manager can either be programmed to only provide power at certain times or use occupancy-based controls to provide power to certain devices only when someone is at the workstation. In the new Intent furniture line of desks, storage and shelving, reclaimed wood accounts for 90 percent of the wood content in the work surface substrates. Herman Miller also unveiled a couple of new light products. Twist is an LED undershelf light that uses 40-50 percent less energy than traditional undershelf lights and provides 60,000 hours of light. Flute is an LED desktop light that uses 4.5 watts of energy, can last up to 100,000 hours, is 82 percent recyclable and is made from 26 percent recycled content. Steelcase has announced a broad range of news as well. Its Nesso access floor is made with recycled materials like newspaper and fly ash, and has eliminated the use of PVC. Steelcase's Cogent Group collection of Cradle to Cradle Gold certified textiles has been expanded to include more colors and styles. The company has also expanded the choices available for its Think chair, which now has 14 standard color options, utilizing Cogent Group textiles. Steelcase has additionally redesigned the packaging for shipping its Think and Amia chairs, reducing the amount of space needed to move them around by the equivalent of 150 Steelcase trucks per year. more here.

Three Herman Miller Products Pick Up Awards at Neocon

Chicago — Herman Miller’s Setu and Embody chairs, along with its Twist task light, have picked up awards at NeoCon 2009 World’s Trade Fair. Interior design and real estate management professionals jury the “Best of NeoCon Awards.” They recognized Herman Miller's Setu chair with a gold award in the Conference Seating category and a silver award in the Lounge Seating category. Also, the Embody chair got a silver award in the Ergonomic Seating category, while the Twist light was given gold. The awards are sponsored and organized by the International Interior Design Association, the International Facility Management Association, Contractmagazine, the McMorrow Report and Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. “These awards reflect our company’s continuing investment in innovation and also the talent and dedication of employees and designers who made it possible for us to achieve this recognition," noted Herman Miller President and CEO Brian Walker. More from The Holland Sentinel

Embody Test, Day 6

This morning I discovered a lever on the Embody that I had previously ignored. It’s the lever that controls how far back you can lean, and it’s located on the back left beneath the seat. So I experimented with different recline positions today. There are 4 in all. The committee’s findings were that I like the most recline possible, a conclusion foreshadowed by my writing on how to look like a slacker and still get work done (Day 2). (Read about how my 6th day with the Embody went here.)

Embody Test, Day 4

It is a well-documented fact that workers need to get up, stretch their legs, and look at something besides their computer screens every so often. Today I found one limitation of the Embody chair. It is so comfortable to sit in that I forgot to get up every so often. As a result, my posterior finally told me that it didn't want to be sat upon any longer, and would I please get up for a bit. That's more my memory's fault than a fault of the Embody chair I was using, but the Embody did facilitate that mental lapse. You can read about the rest of Day 4 here.

Embody Test, Day 3

Let me tell you a little bit about my weekend. Friday night: 8 hours of driving. Saturday: 5 hours of driving. Sunday: 6 and a half hours of driving. I have a sore back. The funny thing is that when I got to work and sat down, I realized that I also have a sore neck. The reason this is funny is that I don't have a sore back while sitting in the Embody. It's the end of the day now and I'm quite relaxed. (Read about how my third day with the Embody went here.)

Embody Test, Day 1

Today I exchanged my standard, run-of-the-mill office chair for an Embody, Herman Miller's newest, snazziest office chair. I have a sore back and neck and can't wait to see how the Embody deals with the issue. Actually, I'm not so much interested in how the Embody deals with it as much as I am interested to see how ANY OTHER CHAIR deals with it. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have to note that even though my back isn't messed up because of my old chair, the old chair certainly wasnt helping it.) (Read about how my first day with the Embody went here.)