26. CAHAN & ASSOCIATES
When Herman Miller decided to start a new magazine, See: The Potential of Place, the design-forward company sent out an audition request to three separate firms. That initial creative brief was so intriguing that all the senior designers at Cahan & Associates took a crack at defining the book’s look and feel. “The content was rich, we dug in, we requested more articles, we went incognito to Herman Miller’s San Francisco showroom in search of the most ergonomic chair available today,” says senior designer Todd Richards. “What resulted were varied prototypes that questioned the conventions of magazine design.”

Ultimately, Richards’ approach rang most true for the company’s vision of the magazine—unpredictable, eclectic, a spontaneous creation. There are no ads or slick product shots of Herman Miller furniture in See. Instead, there are rich articles boasting truly individual designs, ones that reflect the content and underlying theories within the text. It’s a magazine any design fan could lose an afternoon with—and, perhaps, wish that it made an appearance in her mailbox more than twice a year. Michelle Taute