The Eames chair

The Eameses focused first on usability in their designs.[citation needed] In addition to the style, the Eames Lounge Chair is very comfortable[citation needed], a combination not always found in high design. The chair has become iconic with Modern style design although when it was first made Ray Eames remarked in a letter to Charles that the chair looked "comfortable and un-designy". Charles's vision was for a chair with "the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt." The chair is composed of three curved plywood shells. In modern production the shells are made up of seven thin layers of wood veneer glued together and shaped under heat and pressure.

This differentiates the newer chairs from the "original" (vintage) chairs which used Brazilian rosewood veneers and were constructed of five layers of plywood. Also, what differentiated the earliest sets from newer sets were sets of rubber spacers between the aluminum spines and the wood panels first used in the earliest production models (and then hard plastic washers used in later version). In the earlier sets, the zipper around the cushions may have been brown or black as well, and in newer sets the zippers are black. The shells and the seat cushions are essentially the same shape, and composed of two curved forms interlocking to form a solid mass. The chair back and headrest are identical in proportion, as are the seat and the Ottoman.