Michael Welsh

“I believe as in the composing of music, design should ignite an emotion to engage a human experience of purpose and intrigue.”

Born 1967 in Cincinnati, Michael Welsh allowed art, inventiveness and technology to direct him to the industrial design discipline.

As Senior Industrial Designer at Haworth, Michael is responsible for leading the design and development of seating in North America for the Haworth Design Studio, from product strategy, initial concept exploration to production, and management of external design partners.

Michael joined Haworth in the role of Senior Industrial Designer in 2004 with a strong consultancy and corporate design background and has over 17 years of industry experience.  Throughout his industrial design career, he has served as an independent consultant, a Senior Industrial Designer at Steelcase and designer at a product development consultancy.  He has designed and developed many award winning and patentable products ranging from consumer products, furniture, lighting, to office seating.

Michael was the lead designer in collaboration with ITO Design from Germany of the Zody task chair program which became the industry’s first chair to earn the Gold MBDC Cradle to Cradle rating as well as receiving a 2006 IDEA Ecodesign award for sustainable design. He most recently led the design efforts for the award winning Very seating family which debuted at NeoCon 08.

Michael received a Bachelors of Science degree in Industrial Design from The Ohio State University in 1992.