The digby Design Authenticator

When John Edelman was young, he used to hit estate sales and flea markets looking for furniture design classics. He would flip the furniture, looking for the often-faded, often-missing tags that were stapled to the bottom that identified the maker.

Without that tag, there was no way of telling if the furniture was truly an authentic piece and buyers who didn’t have a skill for sleuthing were left to guess if they were buying a Knoll or a knockoff. And even if it did have the right tags and markings, purchasers still couldn’t be sure if they were getting the real thing.

So, Edelman, a lifelong devotee of authentic design and the president and CEO of Heller, turned to technology, the digby Design Authenticator (DDA), a digital tool that lives at the intersection of technology and tradition that can help buyers and sellers tell an authentic piece from a fake.

The DDA is built on the blockchain, the digital, verifiable global ledger that creates an indisputable pedigree for each authentically designed product, a key tool that manufacturers, buyers and sellers can use to combat counterfeiting.

“I’ve been involved with Be Original Americas, fighting for authenticity and we’ve always wanted to find a way to give people the confidence that they are buying genuine products,” he said. “I remember going to the flea markets 25 years ago and finding the old-tattered authenticity tags on the bottom of Herman Miller furniture. It was just so lucky that it hadn’t fallen off or hadn’t been cleaned off. It was so temporary. You’re still selling those same pieces, but how do you leverage modern technology to help preserve the value and the security of authenticity?”

That’s where the DDA comes in. Heller is the first furniture brand to partner with digital design innovation company digby on its blockchain-based token product designed to establish indisputable authenticity and protect intellectual property. The new digby Design Authenticator (DDA) Product, will enable Heller to introduce an irrefutable digital token to solidify the authenticity of each Vignelli Rocker sold, offering a level of provenance not previously available to consumers, while connecting them with Heller’s commitment to sustainability.

The digital token won’t add to the cost of the chair, Edelman said. And unlike those old-tattered tags on the bottom of furniture, the digital token will transfer from buyer to buyer throughout the life of the product.

The DDA not only enables sustainability programs while combating counterfeiting, but also opens additional opportunities for manufacturers like Heller to connect directly with consumers. This allows consumers to participate in loyalty-based programs that strengthen the value of their investment in authentically designed goods while deepening their relationships with the brand.

“We’re thrilled that the iconic Vignelli Rocker will be the first product to feature the digby Design Authenticator,” said Tessa Bain, co-founder of digby. “Championing authentic design has always been core to our mission which is why we’re thrilled to have launch partners like Heller who not only have leveraged the core capability of the product — to authenticate design — but have also highlighted the value of their product’s full lifecycle by connecting Heller consumers with their industry-leading sustainability initiatives.”

The digital token provided by digby can be stored in a digital wallet, on the owner’s computer or printed and kept the same way a consumer would a warranty card.

Without getting into the digital weeds, the DDA links the one-of-one physical product to a one-of-one non-fungible token, according to digby co-founded Andrew Lane. “We do that by taking information, whether it’s a production number, whether it’s an order number, serial number or a chip embedded in it — the thing that makes the product unique — and we use that…as part of the product in order to create the NFT.

You might have heard of NFTs as they relate to the art world. The exact same blockchain technology that authenticates a Beeple NFT artwork, one of which sold for a whopping $69 million, also is used to verify and protect authentic furniture through the DDA. The authentication happens through the blockchain, record-keeping technology designed to make it impossible to hack the system or forge the data stored in it.

“The minting of an NFT has become a commonplace technology pretty quickly,” said Lane. “It’s pretty inexpensive. It’s very energy efficient now contrary to some of the lingering stories out there about how energy-inefficient these things can be. Really it’s about generating a unique identifier to the good that you want to connect to in some way and then using that unique identifier to generate a mirror, a twin, that is a digital NFT.”

The use of blockchain technology is new to the world of built interiors, but Lane and Bain hope furniture makers will see the value of protecting their designs and connecting to their customers. The company is focused on using the technology for new products, but it could be used to authenticate design classics in the future.

“We know we’re not necessarily the only people who are creating NFTs that are linked to physical goods, but we believe we’re the only ones who are doing it with a specific focus on the A&D industry,” said Lane. “The secondary use case is something that we’d like to see in the future, but that process is a little bit lengthier and it’s more of a one-off. The tech works well from a cost standpoint and everything at scale so that’s the place where we’ve started.”