Our Purpose
Inspire a more creative way of living through good design that’s good to everyone.
Our theory is simple.
We believe design should do more than just look good. It needs to consider how each of us live and work, finding creative ways to make both easier and more delightful. To that end, we thoughtfully design every piece to have personality and a purpose. Namely, to be enjoyed by everyone for a good long time.
We design everything we make.
We are designers who work together to make good design happen. Inside our Minneapolis shop, you’ll find us elbow deep in sketches or playing show-and-tell with concepts. Our design process is a total collaboration from pencil and paper, materials and machines, even packaging and assembly.
PHOTOS ABOVE Prototypes of the Decade Chair
PHOTOS ABOVE Prototypes of the Decade Chair
Design that does better.
Good design is only truly good when it’s good to everyone. As we lay out a path for our sustainability work, we’ve looked at everything we do through that lens. From the durability of our designs to the materials we use, the spaces we’re in and the company we keep—we’ve scrutinized how we operate in every area. And we’ve analyzed what we can do differently to minimize our environmental impact while continuing to create purposeful and inspiring designs we all feel great about.
We’re focused on a variety of goals that fall within four key areas: our design principles, choosing the right materials, maintaining high standards and our internal commitments. Accomplishing each of these goals will take time and require an ongoing effort, but we’re in it for the long haul. We believe we owe it to our communities, our partners and the world around us. See our full plan.
PHOTOS ABOVE Beau Floor Lamp, Field Lounge Chair
PHOTOS ABOVE Beau Floor Lamp, Field Lounge Chair
Our people are our superpower.
You won’t find any designers in capes here. Everything we design is a collaboration of a whole slew of people throughout Blu Dot. Each of us playing an equally important role to make good design happen, while doing what we love. (Win-win!) What makes this group effort work? Strong culture and talented people, most of whom have been with us for many years, and some since the very beginning. Want to be one of them?
Where it all began.
Established in 1997.
Our very first designs were sketched on a shared roll of butcher paper spread across a long table in a 300 square foot space in Minneapolis. Three college friends—two architects and a sculptor—just dreaming and designing. The early makings of a very humble venture inspired by our own futile search for desirable and accessible modern designs for our own homes.
Our goal then and now was to bring good design to as many people as possible. We never imagined that over 20 years later, we’d be lucky enough to still be designing purposeful and beautiful objects in our Minneapolis studio. Only now we do it with an incredibly talented team of fellow design lovers (and a much longer table).
Together, we’ve built a business that not only supports our design habit, but lets us have our hands on the whole process, from product development through the customer experience. It’s how we design pieces that are in it for the long haul. Some of our most popular designs today were part of our very first collection. We hesitate to call anything an “icon,” but we’re working on it!
In 2018, Blu Dot was awarded the prestigious Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in the ‘Product Design’ category.
Read all about it
Settle in with this labor of love we call Blu Dot. Twenty years of dreaming, striving, failing and fine-tuning are chronicled in this three pound tome. Told through a carefully designed mix of writing and visuals, it’s the story of how we slowly earned this humbling position of thinking, designing and making real things for real people.
Good design is a beautiful process.
Everything we make and sell is designed by us, right here in our Minneapolis shop.
