Part 3: Herman Miller WHY

This is my third post sharing with you the Herman Miller WHY series.

Irving Harper: The Mediums Beyond the Message 

In this segment of the Herman Miller WHY series, Amber Bravo examines Irving Harper's two-decade stint as design director of the George Nelson Office and the impact his print design had on client Herman Miller.

According to Bravo, "...the Swiss magazine Graphis noted in a 1953 survey of his print work for the Nelson Office, it’s an approach not dissimilar to that of an architect. 'The page on which to print is regarded as a site on which to build…. Pictorial material, often broken into fragments, is organized by asymmetrical harmonies.' From his start working with Nelson in 1947 through his tenure as design director at the office until 1963, Harper brought a visual coherence and energy to everything he created—from furniture, to ads, to clocks—but it's in the printed collateral that his approach to design as a total experience is most easily gleaned. Be it evoking three-dimensional spatial gestures into a two-dimensional magazine spread, for example, or turning a functional object like a clock into a graphic abstraction, or giving a simple typographic treatment the textural quality of a swath of fabric, everything he designs has a deeper sense of dimension."

Magazine ad, 1960
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Magazine ads, 1952 (left) and 1960 (right)
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Magazine ad for Interiors, 1952
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Magazine ad for Interiors: 1949 (left) and magazine ad: "Herman Miller Collection," 1952
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Magazine ad, 1948
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Magazine ad, 1949
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Irving Harper's logo for Herman Miller, 1947
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You can read the entire piece at the Herman Miller site.