For about six months now, Simon has noticed that when sleeping, I put my right hand on the back of my head and bend my right arm above my body. We wondered why all of the sudden I had started that new sleeping pose until one day I caught myself sitting in front of my work computer with my right arm bent and my hand supporting my head. There you had it, unconsciously I had adopted a position to support my head while working.
As the designer that I am, I started to question what was wrong with my chair and why I had to hold my head. I observed that my chair didn’t have enough support for my head, and to avoid tiring my neck, I had created a support with my own body.
Now that I’m back to the long days of work starting at around 9:00 AM and finishing at around 9:30 PM (don’t worry I work this long only twice a week). I have been wondering how to enhance my long journey experience and what has won the price is having a better task chair that actually supports my head. Here are my top 5 and please let me know if you have any more suggestions.
Freedom Headrest Task Chair by Niels Diffrient
This chair is the winner of ten design awards to date—including the Design Distinction Award in the prestigious ID Design Review 2000 competition. Its weight-sensitive recline, synchronously adjustable armrests, and dynamically positioned headrest set new standards for task chair performance and functionality to keep the sitter exceptionally comfortable while also lowering the risk of long-term injury. You can get it at Human Scale.
Side view drawing of Freedom Headrest
Featuring :
- Automatic Headrest
- Recline Action
- Contoured Cushions
- Responsive Backrest
- Synchronouts Armrests
- Body Fit
- Intelligent Mechanism
Leap WorkLounge by Steelcase
According to Steelcase, the Leap chair adjusts to fit your body, so you don’t have to adjust your body to fit the chair.
Thanks to LiveBack technology, the Leap chair back flexes to change shape as your back changes shape, providing stable support and encouraging unrestricted movement. And with its simple and intuitive adjustments — like separate controls for Lower Back Firmness and Upper Back Force and adjustable armrests that move in four directions —it’s easy to adjust your Leap chair to fit you comfortably for the entire day.
I personally love the white one and would love to use it on a daily basis.
Me Too Task Chair by Nurus
This is a quite old chair (originally designed in 2001), but to me what matters the most is that it is functional and supports by head.
Me Too is designed with a view to improve the quality of office life, where we spend at least eight hours every day, one-third of our lives, constructing a healthy way of living at our offices. Conceptualized with Nurus D Team’s approach that “a well designed office chair is the health insurance for the employee”, and produced according to European Norms, Me Too holds LGA and GS safety certification.
The fact that problems encountered in waist, back and neck regions originate from using unhealthy office chairs was among the factors that brought Me Too the IF Design Award, another factor being that Me Too concept is masterfully finished with product ergonomics and technical details.
Eames Soft Pad Executive Chair
Designed by our heroes Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller, a cushy cousin of the Aluminum Group, Soft Pad is a luxurious chair that bears the unmistakable Eames stamp. The Executive chair offers an extra 7 ¼ inches of back height. Now this is a classy task chair with a soft touch.
Generation Chair by Knoll
This chair may not have a head support component but surely seems and is very comfortable and flexible. Generation by Knoll offers a new standard of comfort and unrestrained movement, supporting the range of postures and work styles of today’s workplace, Designed by Formway Design, Generation takes the idea of elastic design – where a product rearranges itself in response to its user – to a new level.
These chairs are all amazing, but for now, I must keep it low-cost, so I am going to find a head support that I can attach to my current chair and start saving for one of these chairs.
Thanks for visiting.
a perspective of design 