Herman Miller is an American furniture company with a hundred-year history. They created one of the world’s most famous office chairs, the Aeron. And Fortune magazine named Herman Miller one of the most respected companies, and the best in the furniture industry.
Herman Miller is not just a furniture factory, it is a whole scientific institute where they collect and analyze data from all over the world. The company is one of the top three world leaders in the manufacture and sale of office furniture and for good reason, as they have over a century of experience in the industry.
The Herman Miller brand was established in 1923. It was originally engaged in development, research, and experimentation in the furniture industry. This company has made a real breakthrough in the furniture industry, creating high-end products, while conforming to such principles as functionality, environmental safety, ergonomics, and anthropometrics. But its history began a bit earlier. In 1905, the Star Furniture company, which specialized in the design of high-quality classic bedrooms, was founded. Only 15 years later, the production was renamed to the Herman Miller brand. This happened thanks to the son-in-law of a Miller furniture maker named D. J. De Pree. He convinced his father-in-law to buy shares in the factory to start his own business.
In the beginning, Herman Miller produced wooden furniture for the home, mostly bedroom furniture in the classic style. However, the Great Depression of the 30s forced a serious revision of the business strategy. Herman Miller became a world-famous brand producing modernist furniture and accessories.
Herman Miller pays a lot of attention to the issue of ecology. In 1995 they opened a factory called Greenhouse. The factory is located in a huge green area and some even call it an invisible building. After the factory opened, it was infested not only by workers but also by paper wasps. And instead of eradicating the pests, the company’s management decided to build an apiary next to the office. They brought in and planted 600,000 bees, which gradually displaced the wasps.
What is Herman Miller?
Herman Miller is the name of an American furniture manufacturing company that designs complete workplace solutions that involve all types of products that the company produces, such as office chairs, desks, shelving, organizers, desk lamps, and clocks.
In terms of visual identity, Herman Miller is also very modernist. For decades the company has been using an interesting geometric emblem in its logo. And this sharp element, composed of two mirrored parts perfectly represents the style of the brand’s items.
The iconic graphical letter “M”, which is still used by the brand today, was designed in 1946 by Irving Harper. The artist says he created it in just one hour, for the catalog of the company. But it stayed for decades. The sharp red M was inscribed into an elegant cursive lowercase lettering, executed in Bodoni Ultra Bold Italic typeface.
In 1959 the Herman Miller logo was redesigned by George Nelson & Co. The color palette of the badge was changed to black-and-white, with the white inscription rewritten in the uppercase of the iconic Futura font. The graphical “M” was still in its place, but was colored white this time.
Another redesign was held by the company in 1968. John Massey, responsible for it, decided to take the graphical M out of the wordmark and place it in the left part of the badge as a self-sufficient emblem. The whole composition was set in black on a transparent background, with the lettering rewritten in the lowercase of a bold sans-serif typeface.
In 1999 the Herman Miller logo was redesigned by Brian Edlefson and Steve Frykholm. The designers decided to bring back a bright shade of red to the badge and changed the typeface of the title case lettering to FF Meta. With the capitalized first letters of both parts the sharp white M, inscribed into a solid red circle, looked more balanced.
The redesign of 2024, held by the Order Bureaux, switched the typeface of the title case lettering but kept its style. Another change was made to the emblem, and now the sharp graphical M is drawn in red against the white background without any additional framing.
The laconic medium-weight lettering from the primary logo of the Herman Miller company is executed in a traditional sans-serif typeface, Söhne, which is quite similar to such commercial fonts as Sequel Sans and Celeb MF with some insignificant modifications.
As for the color palette of Herman Miller visual identity, it is based on a bright shade of red, which is usually perceived as a symbol of passion, power, and confidence.