Aeron Chair Guide

You may know that Herman Miller's Aeron Chair is one of the best selling office chairs in the world, but how well do you know the men behind the Aeron chair? Meet Michigan-based furniture designer Bill Stumpf.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri and educated at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and at the University of Wisconsin, Bill Stumpf had a knack for creating revolutionary designs. During his postgraduate years, Stumpf spent his time studying at University of Wisconsin's Environmental Design Center and working with orthopedic and vascular specialists. With some assistance from these medical professionals, Stumpf began extensive research into how people sit and how people should be sitting.

"Everything goes back to those days at the University of Wisconsin," Stumpf said. "Everything was about freeing the body, designing away constraints."

Stumpf was asked to join the renowned Herman Miller Research Corporation in 1970 to apply his knowledge and passion for ergonomics to modern office seating. In 1972, Stumpf founded his own studio in Minnesota and created designs for Herman Miller for over 30 years. In conjunction with designer Don Chadwick, Stumpf's first groundbreaking office chair for Herman Miller, the Ergon chair, was pioneered in 1976 and was the first work chair based on ergonomics. Later, Stumpf and Chadwick developed the Equa (meaning "equal"), a lighter version of his ergonomic office chair.

"I enjoy myself, and I do it through design," Stumpf once revealed. "I love beauty, and I love the availability of beautiful things and useful things immediately around me."

Clark Malcolm, a friend and colleague of Stumpf's at the Herman Miller Company, knew firsthand of Stumpf's devotion to aesthetically pleasing designs. He said that Stumpf would get angry if things were not working or if they were unattractive.

"He once got out of an Amtrak train and washed the windows. He just couldn't help it," Malcolm said.

Stumpf applied this same sense of pride and devotion when he and collaborator Chadwick created his most popular product, the Aeron Chair, in 1994. The iconic Aeron chair, which was placed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, went on to be named the Gold Winner of the "Designs of the Decade" award by the Industrial Designers Society of America in the 1990s, as well as one of the best selling office chairs in the world . The unique shape of the Aeron chair, which does not incorporate any straight lines, sets it apart from every other chair on the market. It also included the most number of patentable designs than any other Herman Miller research program.

Among Stumpf's additional life accomplishments include a Personal Recognition Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America in 2001 and a classic design textbook published in 1998 called "The Ice Palace that Melted Away." He passed away in 2006 at the age of 70 of complications from abdominal surgery.