Herman Miller — Keyn — Furniture Design

Can chairs improve your listening?

Yes — when they make sitting down less about sitting still.

Shared impact

Multi-million chairs sold globally since 2016.
Patented CradleFlex movement innovation.
Winner Design Guild Mark Award.

Furniture

Global

Furniture - Industrial Design - Strategy

Herman Miller are a renowned furniture brand, with a portfolio of iconic task chairs. But with workspaces becoming increasingly collaborative, there was a huge opportunity for them to create a new icon in the meeting room.

We worked closely with the company to create a unique chair that feels new for them and new for the industry — while also solving a real need for meeting-goers worldwide.

Take a seat, meet Keyn.

Photograph of forpeople team developing the Keyn Chair at the Oval studio, London. Film by forpeople.

Strategy

More free movement,
means better focus

To create our meeting chair, we started by observing meetings in action and identified a simple but significant truth:

people rarely sit still.  

We all have an innate drive to move, and when sitting in meetings we can lean, stretch, and shift posture up to 57 times an hour. But if a meeting chair is stiff, restrictive, or needs to be manually adjusted, that discomfort becomes a distraction.

So, a chair that responsively flexes to and supports your movement would fulfil that natural need to fidget — and in turn it also keeps your focus on the conversation at hand.   

That thinking led us to develop Keyn. A revolutionary meeting chair with responsive kinematics, it’s designed to instantly and naturally move with you, without you even noticing.

Photograph of Kinematic rig prototype for the Herman Miller Keyn Chair in early stage. Film and design by forpeople.

A selection of photographs of the development of the Keyn seat-pad. Film and design by forpeople.

Industrial Design

Mass craftsmanship,
achieved through innovation

Throughout the design process for Keyn, we merged traditional handcraft refinement with cutting-edge technology — delivering contemporary craftsmanship at mass-production scale.

We used advanced automotive-grade software to meticulously craft the chair’s 3D surfaces, achieving exceptional precision and seamless flow.

The perforated pattern of the back shell was generated through custom-coding, and reflects the range of motion the chair is designed to support.

Guided by Herman Miller’s design heritage, while also incorporating new, purposeful approaches, our process culminated in a chair that is both timeless and distinctive.

Production detail photograph of hermer miller Keyn chair. Film and design by forpeople.

Rhino workflow demonstrating a custom plugin developed by forpeople for rapid chair-back pattern iteration. Design and film by forpeople.

A photograph of the small-scale Keyn models for design evaluation. Film and design by forpeople.

Photograph of Herman Miller and forpeople's Keyn chair main assembly.

Photograph of Herman Miller and forpeople's Keyn chair undergoing its 'million-cycle' test.

Photograph of Herman Miller's factory making the Keyn chair at scale. Film by forpeople, courtesy of Herman Miller

Furniture

One chair. 
Many personalities.

Not only are offices becoming more collaborative spaces, but they’re also becoming more domesticated in look and feel.

We expanded Keyn out to a versatile family of chairs through a modular system that allows for personalisation and individuality, without compromising on design or quality.

Herman Miller’s thoughtful engineering and unrivalled testing capabilities brought Keyn’s design to life.

And together, our uncompromising approaches delivered unique chairs designed to work in every office, for decades to come.

Photograph of several Herman Miller Keyn chair variants at forpeople. Film by forpeople, courtesy of Herman Miller.

Photograph of the Keyn chair in a home office setting. Design and film by forpeople.

Photograph of the Keyn chair in an abstract setting. Design and film by forpeople.

"With Keyn, Herman Miller and forpeople have brought together human-centered design and deep knowledge of workplace seating to offer meeting chairs whose versatility, consistent aesthetic, and responsive comfort can meet the needs of a single workplace, or an entire enterprise."

Herman Miller

Photograph of several Keyn chairs around a table.

Working closely with Herman Miller, we discovered a fresh insight for the furniture space, and brought it to life through thoughtful design, cutting edge engineering and responsible manufacturing.

Keyn gave the company a seat in the meeting room, gaining them fresh momentum in the industry. Together we removed distractions of discomfort and restriction as our debut chair sold millions worldwide.