THE COLLECTION OF MOLDED PLYWOOD FURNITURE
DESIGNED BY CHARLES EAMES
Charles and Ray Eames with Charles Kratka
Eames Office and Alfred Auerbach [text], Charles and Ray Eames with Charles Kratka [design]: THE COLLECTION OF MOLDED PLYWOOD FURNITURE [designed by Charles Eames]. Zeeland, Michigan: The Herman Miller Furniture Company, 1948. Original Edition. A fine, uncirculated brochure with light wear to folds. Brochure unfolds to reveal sixteen panels: 5.5 x 6.5 [fold size] to 6.5 x 44 [trim size]. Printed in black and "Herman Miller red" with a "designed by Charles Eames" credit on rear panel. Photography and artwork by the Eames Office: art direction by Ray Eames with Charles Kratka's uncredited graphic design and production.
This brochure was the first piece of marketing material to promote the Charles Eames molded plywood furniture manufactured by the Herman Miller Furniture Company. Photographs and production specifications for the DCW, DCM4, LCW, LCM chairs, the Dining, Card and Incidental folding tables, FSW folding screens, and the CTW1, CTW3 and CTM1 coffee tables.
A very unusual piece of original ephemera promoting the most significant line of modern furniture ever produced.
"What you make is important. Design is an integral part of business. The product must be honest. You decide what you want to make. There is a market for good design." -- George Nelson, from his introduction, THE HERMAN MILLER COLLECTION [Zeeland, MI: Herman Miller Furniture Co., 1948].
This brochure was reproduced in full in the "Eames Design" book by John and Marilyn Neuhart and Ray Eames [page 89]. Here is the Neuhart/Eames background on the production of this brochure:
1948: Herman Miller Furniture Company Graphics
"As Herman Miller's marketing campaigns for the Eames plywood chairs developed, the Eames office gradually assumed the creation of graphics and advertisements featuring their furniture (although no formal plan or contract for the work was ever drawn up). The office designed and wrote the copy with the help of Alfred Auerbach, Herman Miller's marketing consultant. The first ads, designed by Ray with Charles Kratka, featured the plywood chairs, the round-top table, the folding table with rod legs, and the folding screen. The ads were published in such trade journals as Retailing Daily and in consumer periodicals, including Arts & Architecture, Interiors, and Architectural Forum.
"Herman Miller's advertising budget was small; the ads were printed in black and white or in two colors [black and "Herman Miller red"] and featured images of plywood furniture photographed in the Eames Office, combined on occasion with drawings that emphasized and dramatized the organic quality of the furniture. Photographs of Eames displays in Herman Miller showrooms were also used. The informal, almost playful graphics conveyed the same energy and liveliness that was inherent in the approach to the design of the furniture itself. "
"The real asset of Herman Miller at that time," Nelson wrote, "were items one never found on a balance sheet: faith, a cheerful indifference to what the rest of the industry might be up to, lots of nerve, and a mysterious interaction that had everyone functioning at top capacity while always having a very good time."
This entire brochure can be viewed here.
out of stock