7.9.05 | Washington Post |Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but what Target has done to the venerable Emeco Navy chair shows disrespect. The Web store Target.com offers a "Cafe Aluminum side chair" from Asia for $249.99 a pair. The online listing describes the chair as a "classic design." That's true. The image closely resembles a trademarked American classic: the Emeco 1006 Navy chair. Target's response to lawyer's letters has been less satisfying. A champion of design might have whisked the knockoff from its lineup. Target won a Smithsonian National Design Award for corporate excellence in 2003, but now the discounter is behaving like a discounter: The knockoff is still online.

By Linda Hales, Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday

3.22.05 | Metropolis | Alice Bieneman, an interior designer contracted to Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH), in suburban Chicago, can outfit a new medical office from her desktop. Her employer dictates the colors and surfaces she can use, but Bieneman controls the installation. Using a database that looks and works a lot like Amazon or eBay, she selects furniture from ENH's stock, in remote warehouses. Bieneman wastes less time, her colleagues in warehouses waste fewer trips, and ENH wastes less inventory--all thanks to PinPoint, a software program from Iowa-based furniture manufacturer Allsteel. "If I'm trying to create a certain look and I have products available in standard finishes," she explains, "I can put that in a cart and quote [a price for] the balance." Bieneman estimates that in 2002--the year it adopted PinPoint--the health-care company saved as much as a million dollars by avoiding redundant purchases.

If you are looking for another handsome volume filled with 20th century furniture to place on the Nelson slat bench near your Eames 620 lounger, keep searching. Although it has its fair share of lovingly photographed modern room settings, this coffee table book is actually a compelling history of the Zeeland, Mich., furniture company and its philosophy: "Never to create anything without a purpose but to make everything they create attractive and interesting."  By DAVID KEEPS

2.22.05 | New York Times | WHEN Bob Duncan was studying engineering management at the University of Texas in the mid-1980's, Japanese competition had American businesses terrified. To the confident young Mr. Duncan, however, Japanese manufacturing was not a threat but an inspiration. Within a couple of years, he had an idea for his own company. He decided to do for leather furniture what Japanese companies had done for cars, steel and shipbuilding: shake up a staid, complacent industry by rethinking the manufacturing process. In 1990, with another Andersen consultant, Sanjay Chandra, as his partner, Mr. Duncan set out to turn this concept into a business, the Dallas-based American Leather.  By VIRGINIA POSTREL

2.16.05 | BusinessWeek | You would think that Guy Dollé, the cerebral CEO of Europe's leading steelmaker, Arcelor, would have mixed feelings about Lakshmi N. Mittal. After all, when Mittal announced last fall that he was creating the world's largest steel company by buying U.S.-based International Steel Group Inc. (ISG ), the Indian-born investor knocked Dollé's company into second place. But Dollé applauded. "It's a very positive signal to the industry that it has to move and consolidate," he says. "In coming years you will see a speeding up of mergers and acquisitions in the steel industry." <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"> if (!window.adOb) document.write('<scr'+'ipt language="javascript" src="/common_scripts/adlogic.js"></script>'); </script>

2.16.05 | Interior Design | Instead of the usual run-of-the-mill portable stalls lining streets outside, tents at the marquee New York event had bathrooms worthy of the high fashion gliding down the runway. Part of a savvy marketing role-out by Kohler Co., a global leader in kitchen and bath design, the mobile bathrooms pulled up to the tents in Bryant Park. “Our sponsorship allows us to align ourselves even more closely with the fashion industry and an audience with a keen interest in creating spectacular design statements," says Kohler president David Kohler. By MAIRI BEAUTYMAN  (We see a trend: Charmin also had a mobile bathroom trailer at the Superbowl.)