Our Design and Development Team is made up of designers, engineers, model-makers, ergonomists and upholsterers; a permanent team of nine people at Boss Design are supported by an international network of freelancers with wide-ranging skills and experience to help drive our product development program forward and ensure that the products we manufacture are as environmentally friendly, ergonomically sound and inspiringly formed as possible.

Our facility in Dudley is equipped with everything we need to develop, prototype and test products from upholstered armchairs and sofas to visitor, meeting, conference, task and operator seating.

Most of our research is done through forums which include clients, suppliers, architects and designers, who are encouraged to dissect our own portfolio and the wider market in order to identify customer’s needs and areas where improvement can be achieved. They are invited to discuss topics such as the changing workplace, the feminine influence on the workplace and the influence that technology will have on our offices over the next decade. This in turn helps us to get a broader understanding of where future opportunities will exist.

We regularly collect feedback from the users of our products in order to assess their ergonomic qualities and the ease of use of our task chairs. Our aim is to create a portfolio that is recognisable throughout the world, but also a portfolio that is recognisably Boss Design.

We have been influenced by the competitive nature of the market and by those brands who have developed collections of unquestionable quality and flair, manufactured without compromising or diluting the designer’s original ideas; companies who understand that the manufacturing facility needs to remain fluid and adaptable, overcoming the challenges that each season’s designs present and continually moving forward.

Our team’s design heroes are wide ranging and stretch from Hans Wagner to Jasper Morrison but what they all have in common is the clarity of the forms they create and the consideration they have given to the skills and manufacturing processes needed to deliver their concepts to market. Marrying this uncluttered or refined approach to the aesthetic content of our furniture with a high level of functionality has become the basis of all design briefs that we have undertaken in the last decade and this is evident in the products that we have launched which are competing well on the international stage.

Many of the products we create involve significant investment in tooling for injection moulded plastic and cast aluminium components, an area in which we have significant expertise.

We only use the most experienced and highly respected European suppliers and have worked hard to build strong relationships with our supply chain and gain visibility on their background R&D programs. This ensures that we are always well positioned to take advantage of new material or process technologies which could increase the value of the designs we produce.

Over the last year we have invested in new polymer technology to reduce the amount of material used and cycle times required to manufacture some of our components, resulting in energy and cost savings as well as designs with unique characters and aesthetics. With task and meeting furniture it is usually the upholstery fabric which will wear first so we have developed new methods of assembling our products in order to make it easier to replace the upholstered seat and back components, therefore extending the serviceable life of a product.

At Boss Design our products are designed so that they can be disassembled with basic hand tools. This means that individual component parts can be easily replaced for as long as our client wishes to keep the chairs, but also means that when they reach the end of their serviceable life the component parts can be separated into their respective material groups and sent to specialist companies for recycling. Year after year we are increasing the amount of recycled material content used in our products and choosing materials that can be recycled more easily when the chair reaches the end of its life.

Where our existing portfolio cannot satisfy the specific demands of our clients we have always been pleased to offer a bespoke design and manufacturing service. Clients who have benefited from our ability to modify and adapt existing specifications as well as creating brand new ones include RBS, Lloyds TSB, British Telecom, Hilton Hotels and The Ministry of Defence.

Design Director
Tel. No.: +44 (0) 1384 455 570
Email: mbarrell@boss-design.co.uk