Sayl Chairs
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Beauty, elegance, respect

We asked designer Yves Béhar to design a highly affordable chair that would incorporate everything Herman Miller is known for—beautiful design, first-class ergonomics, elegant engineering, and respect for the environment.

White Sayl office chair with suspension back and red upholstered seat, viewed from a 45-degree angle.
Sketches from designer Yves Béhar, showing how the Golden Gate Bridge inspired the Sayl office chair.

Suspending a chair

Béhar, who calls San Francisco home, began by looking at designs that deliver the most with the least. And then he took a look at his city’s best-known landmark: the Golden Gate Bridge. Béhar wondered, could the engineering principles of a suspension bridge be applied to a chair?

The notion of using a suspension tower to support an unframed suspension back meant that the elastomer material could be stretched in a way that provides the greatest tension at points where support is needed and the least in areas that would allow for the most expansive range of motion.

Something unique

So why “Sayl”, rather than, say, “Bridge”? Take a look at the chair from the side. See the resemblance to a full mainsail? The name reflects the sailing vessels that pass beneath the bridges that inspired the original design. Replacing the “i” in “sail” with a “y” is a nod to the innovative Y-Tower structure of the work chair.

Rear view of a red Sayl office chair, showing the resemblance of the suspension back to a sail.

“Not defined by boundaries.”

More about Yves Béhar

Product Designer Yves Béhar

Awards

  • Sayl chair wins Interior Design's "Best of Year Product" award in Seating: Contract/Task category.

    2011
    Sayl chair wins Interior Design's "Best of Year Product" award in Seating: Contract/Task category.

  • Sayl chair wins FX International's Interior Design Award for Best Workplace Seating.

    2011
    Sayl chair wins FX International's Interior Design Award for Best Workplace Seating.

  • Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) awards a Silver Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) to the Sayl family of seating.

    2011
    Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) awards a Silver Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) to the Sayl family of seating.

  • Sayl chair wins Reader's Choice award in TreeHugger's Best of Green: Design and Architecture category.

    2011
    Sayl chair wins Reader's Choice award in TreeHugger's Best of Green: Design and Architecture category.

  • Sayl chair named "Product Design of the Year" by the 2010 International Design Awards (IDA) jury.

    2010
    Sayl chair named "Product Design of the Year" by the 2010 International Design Awards (IDA) jury.