Our Interview column features Amy Auscherman, Corporate Archivist at Herman Miller.

Questions by Grace Danico

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What was the path that led you to archives?

I grew up a history enthusiast--in elementary school I went through an Egyptology phase and was really into Anne Frank one point. I loved researching  and would spend hours on the family PC cruising Microsoft Encarta. I find it completely natural and appropriate that I ended up in an archives setting.

I studied art history at Indiana University and got a job during my freshman year at The Lilly Library--IU’s rare book and manuscript library. Wandering around those stacks made me decide to pursue my MLS and specialize in rare books and manuscripts, which I also ended up doing at IU. During grad school, I interned at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in the Stout Reference Library. That experience pushed me to look for opportunities in art libraries and archives.

How did you become interested in design and how did you end up at Herman Miller?

While interning at the IMA, the museum acquired the Miller House and Garden. The Miller House was designed by Eero Saarinen, had interiors by Alexander Girard, Dan Kiley did the landscape architecture, and Charles and Ray Eames designed the Aluminum Group for the home as outdoor furniture. Doesn’t really get any better than that architecture and design-wise--a true dream team. The home came with an archive that documented the design, building, and maintenance for the home over a 50 year period. The NEH awarded the IMA funding to digitize the collection and I was hired on as an archives assistant for the project. The 2.5 years I spent digitizing that collection really was my design education. My colleagues and I ran a blog for the project: digitizingmillerhouseandgarden.tumblr.com that garnered some press from the design world and ultimately led me to the opportunity at Herman Miller. The other two people who worked with me on that project also went on to other sweet design archives jobs--Tricia Gilson is the archivist and curator a the Columbus Indiana Architectural Archives and Jennifer Whitlock is the archivist at the Vignelli Center at RIT. Another dream team.

Miller House by Balthazar Korab, Library of Congress Collection

What is it like working in a corporate archive? Explain what an average day looks like for you.

There is no typical day! I could be gathering source material to help redevelop an archival piece; touring new members of our sales team to give them a dose of the Herman Miller "Kool-Aid;" building an art, architecture and design history library for our corporate headquarters; or traveling to do research in other museum and archival collections that inform the holdings of Herman Miller's archive. Truly a design nerd's dream.  I am Herman Miller's Corporate Archivist and often say I'm also Herman Miller's de facto Corporate Historian. Most of my work is focused on supporting our marketing efforts—editorial, social media, customer experience tours. I also inform our [2D and 3D] brand design departments, product development, legal, and R+D departments. I also work frequently with outside institutions to aid curatorial staff in research for exhibitions.

Describe a few favorite projects you’ve worked on.

There are so many! I am one of the editors for Herman Miller’s online platform WHY Magazine and I get to pitch and commission stories from the archives. My own feminist agenda has led me to identify the women in Herman Miller’s design history that haven’t gotten their due, one being the Japanese-American graphic designer Tomoko Miho. We ran a story about her that got a lot of love from the design world.

We revamped our corporate bed & breakfast (where we house clients or special guests) called Marigold and I was tasked with identifying and procuring vintage pieces to use in the redesign. One piece I found was my favorite Gilbert Rohde coffee table from the 1930s and it is now sitting in the library there. I like the idea having archival pieces that can also be seen and used.

Herman Miller opened our first retail store last November in New York City and I helped our design team with a giant installation of George Nelson’s Comprehensive Storage System. I learned a lot about aluminum extrusions and also cleaned out the vintage CSS market. 

Recently, I worked with a curator at the Vitra Design Museum on the Eames Furniture Sourcebook: the ultimate guide to the evolution of Eames designs. I contributed an essay about Herman Miller’s international expansion that was greatly informed by archival collections from our past executives. Our archive isn’t only cool design drawings, textiles, product literature and photography--we have a lot of material that illuminates the history of our business, and the history of the furniture industry overall.

Work by Tomoko Miko

George Nelson's Comprehensive Storage System

We’re both lone arrangers with inherited systems and collections. What challenges have you faced as a lone arranger, and how have you overcome them?

At times it is difficult to be the only librarian/archivist type in a big organization. Not a lot of people understand what it is I actually do, but that gives me the many opportunities to define it for them--and for myself. I have a lot of freedom and latitude in my job, which is exciting, but can also be terrifying. Managing a collection this large and diverse so early in my career is a tall order, but I think being green, as they say, has helped me think outside the box when it comes to leveraging our collections. I think having less experience has helped me be more creative with our collections and how we use them.

Herman Miller has a legacy of working with designers such as Alexander Girard, George Nelson, and Charles and Ray Eames. How did these partnerships come about? What are some new partnerships that you’re excited about?

George Nelson was first engaged by DJ DePree, Herman Miller’s founder, in 1944. It was through Nelson that our relationships with Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Girard came about. Nelson was well connected, had good taste, and wasn’t so much of an egoist that he couldn’t share the spotlight with other designers on Herman Miller’s roster. He saw these other designers and their products as essential parts to the collection of furniture and textiles he amassed for Herman Miller as the Design Director.

These days, we are working with cool new designers like Leon Ransmeier, Scholten and Baijings and Michael Anastassiades, to name a few. Engaging with current designers has been fun for me as I try to figure out the archiving process for our new products and marketing campaigns.

Alexander Girard's designs for Braniff Airline

What are some of your favorite items from the archive?

I have too many favorites! My favorite thing about the collection is that it exists at all. It’s remarkable how much material has been amassed over the years.

We have an Alexander Girard loveseat that I LOVE! Girard designed a line of furniture for Braniff Airlines lounges that Herman Miller later tried to commercialize. It didn’t catch on and we only produced the furniture for about a year. Now pieces from that line are pretty rare to come across.

Prototypes of certain design elements for the Eames Office were also kept. This one is from the Eames Tandem Seating--which you see at the airport. Someone in the office hand carved an element that ultimately was produced in cast aluminum.

We also have a huge ephemera and clippings collection that always yields something new and exciting.

Does Herman Miller have a stockpile of ephemera sitting around in the archive? If so, what do you do with all the extra stuff? Hint hint...please open a store

I WISH! We are currently in the process of identifying extra copies of ephemera in the archives and seeking out institutions that need the Herman Miller sections of their collections beefed up. Recently, we donated some material to the West Michigan Graphic Design Archives.

You attended your first SAA conference this year! How was your experience? Did you catch any good panels or meet anyone interesting?

It was a great experience to spend almost a whole week with a bunch of archivists. I felt understood. I finally met longtime Instagram friend/archivist Grace Danico IRL and we talked shop and nerded out about Alexander Girard.  I also met the archivist at John Deere, which was exciting because they have an Alexander Girard mural at their HQ. We also nerded out about design.

What words of encouragement do you have for archivists interested in design and or corporate archives? Or for designers interested in archives?

Sounds cheesy but, follow your bliss. I’m in my job because I kept digging into things that were interesting to me. And also, build your “personal brand,” or whatever. I was recruited for my job at Herman Miller because of my social media presence. Archivists get to look at cool and interesting things every day. I shared the stuff I was seeing--from the stacks the Lilly Library to now at Herman Miller--and presented archival material in an accessible way.

To designers: do research in archives! Or at least follow them on social media: @lubalincenter, @glaserarchives, @vignellicenter to name a few.

What would you be doing if you weren’t an archivist?

It wouldn’t be too different--I’d be running an art, architecture and design bookshop! Maybe in my next life.

Amy Auscherman is the Corporate Archivist at Herman Miller in Michigan. She received her Masters in Library Science with a specialization in rare books from the University of Indiana, Bloomington in 2013, and previously worked at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @acid_free.

Grace Danico is an archivist and freelance creative specializing in art direction, design, and illustration. She is also a steering committee member and Co-Chair of the Press & Publications Subcommittee of the Los Angeles Archivists Collective. She holds an MLIS from Pratt Institute, and has worked at the American Museum of Natural History and Sesame Workshop. She currently manages a private philantropic collection. Visit her website and follow her on Twitter @gogograce.