As a kid, Jeff Weber was fascinated by the way things worked. "I was always tinkering—either building things or tearing them apart," he says. Watching his mechanical talents develop, his grandfather suggested that he consider becoming an industrial designer. Once he learned more, "I never really thought about doing anything else," recalls Weber.
While Weber's work includes a wide spectrum of products, he became interested in furniture design when he teamed up with Bill Stumpf, who worked with Herman Miller for 30 years. "Bill's design spirit will inspire all my future work," says Weber. One example is Stumpf's "uni-part" theory. "It says that all components of any given object must have a functional purpose as well as an aesthetic one," says Weber. "It's a fundamental principle we employ every day."