as part of the events which took place for
imm cologne and passagen 2008 nils holger moorman
showcased a retrospective show at the museum for
applied arts. the exhibition documented twenty six
years of the german design brand.

in-keeping with NHM's unpredictable nature,
it chose not to install pieces of its furniture
at the exhibition. instead visitors were presented
with a mini-museum of stamps, stickers and
photographs documenting the company's story
so far. the event was accompanied by the latest
NHM brochure - a small, incomplete, black and
white hardback. to 'finish-off' the book, its owner
must collect the various stamps and stickers
and place them on the appropriate pages.





the content, includes products from the NHM
collection along with personal snaps taken on
the road and anecdotes. - as the different items
are added the book becomes a more colorful
representation of the the NHM outlook -
'believability, authenticity, individuality and an
openness to intelligent details, courage and humour'.

throughout their existence NHM have maintained
an approach of simplicity in their design -
with works such as 'pin light', 'hochacht' and more
recently 'walden' typifying their unconventional ideas.
like anything that stands out from the crowd,
the 'style' of NHM is one that is frequently 'borrowed'.
one such instance involved ikea, who produced a piece
almost identical to moorman's 'taurus' trestle design.
NHM successfully challenged the swedish furniture giant
and managed to stop them producing their trestle clone.
the modern day david and goliath story was documented
in the book 'actually, why me?' - written by NHM.
the book was later recalled for legal reasons.

playful communication
moorman's innovative ideas aren't limited to furniture,
with much of their communication material being equally
as off-kilter. the 'no sale, just good advice' brochure is
the latest in a long line of playful projects from NHM,
whose annual event invitations are fabricated from
random second-hand postcards.

a notable example was the 2007 invitation for their
show at the salone del mobile. the off-white invite,
showed the company's address in aschau in chiemgau,
bavaria, germany at the top of the page, with the address
of the exhibition in milan, italy at the bottom. inbetween the
two addresses was a bright-white strip that when
crumpled as instructed became the alps that separated
the two locations.

brief history
after several years of studying law, nils holger moormann's
curiosity for design prevailed and saw him start his own
practice in 1982. he has been producing and selling
work by 'young unknown designers' ever since.
the items from the german company are typified by
their detailed solutions and simple forms.
the company prides itself on sourcing a much of its
materials as possible from aschau im chiemgau in
upper bavaria where it is based. from a one-man
NHM has grown into a group of 20 people.

http://www.moormann.de