Herman Miller was encountering a proliferation of design knockoffs and imitations on the market. Our objective was to initiate a dialogue between Miller and its customers about the importance of design authenticity.

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City and a host of individual retailer events around the country provided opportunities to showcase the message. The trick was producing materials that support a variety of venues.

The original solutions were print, but the line between being glib on the one hand or prescriptive on the other was tough to balance. So we decided on video (motion graphics) as our main message conveyor, while keeping print in the overall mix.

Video gave us the latitude to integrate a number of things: a series of photographs that whimsically differentiated the “real” from the “not real,” archival images and graphics from Herman Miller and other sources establishing each product’s design lineage/origin, and a riveting jazz track by Charles Mingus.

The impact of the project was strong enough to solicit our favorite client response: Bravo. What’s next?

There is a certain elegance to the work.