Design Challenge and Design Ideas

As a furniture designer with many years of experience designing seating for places or worship our customer base began to widen to public offices, galleries and schools. Our traditional customers , those places of worship, their needs were changing too and so were their budgets.

The challenge for me was to design a stackable metal framed chair that was both aesthetically pleasing to look at but durable and affordable. The chair needed to be functional and weight was also an issue as metal framed chairs can be heavy. The end user is always at the forefront of all our designs so having a beautiful chair but not being able to lift and stack them away would defeat the purpose completely.

How the brief was fulfilled

After 2 years of work in design and manufacture we came up with the final design of the ICON 40 chair. Its called the ICON 40 as it stacks 40 high.Every element of the chair has been designed with the end user in mind. The ICON 40 chair has been designed for comfort using a three-dimensional formed seat and back. It gives greater comfort over a wider spectrum of user and is also affordable.

We designed a continuous frame which gives this chair additional strength and rigidity adding to the overall quality of this product. The solid steel used in the overall frame ensures greater strength at the welded junctions.
We wanted to ensure that the materials that we used were durable. As the chair is linkable and stackable it needed to endure the inevitable rough and tumble of life. Having come up with various proto-types we finally settled on the best materials. From quarter sawn oak veneers and stainless steel fixing screws for the back component, right down to the polycarbonate glides which are specially moulded for the chair, this chair is hard to beat when it comes to quality.

We are known for our customised products so we needed to ensure that this element was also worked into the design. The ICON 40 chair can be custom finished in different types of wood as well as an option to include a bronze plated finish for traditional settings. The seat can be upholstered and the back can also be customised with company logos or symbols. There is also the ability to apply bookshelves for storage between the seats. The seats can also link in a straight or curved line depending on the space thats available. Arms can also be added and a purpose designed trolley system is also available. Stacked 40 high on the trolley system the height comes to only 1.7mtrs high. Each chair weighs just 6.9kg

This chair has recently been FIRA tested to contract standard and our customers are loving the new design. In just under a year on the market we have sold over 1000 of these chairs, a true testament of the ICON 40’s:

* Superior Comfort
* Quality Construction
* Increased Flexibility
* Innovative Design