Founders’ Story

By the time the pair married a few years later, Lindsay had joined Jeffrey full-time and was managing sales and outreach for their first company, Jeffrey Braun Furniture. They spent over a decade designing and manufacturing custom furniture for residential and commercial projects around the country including Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, hotels and restaurants, shopping malls, multi-family buildings and senior living facilities.

After seeing an increasing need for commercial-grade, residential-inspired seating, Lindsay and Jeffrey set out to launch a new kind of contract furniture company. One that truly supported the commercial dealership and designer community by offering a line of unique furniture and easy custom options.

While waiting in line for coffee at a neighborhood cafe in Seattle, two strangers struck up a conversation about travel. Little did they know, the pair would spend the rest of their lives growing a furniture company and a life together.

When Jeffrey and Lindsay met, he had recently launched a line of residential furniture, partnering with showrooms in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Jeffrey had already enjoyed a prolific early career as an art director in the Chicago film industry before pursuing his interior design degree at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, eventually focusing his skills on furniture. Lindsay had worked in the state legislature and was the communications director at a business and marketing strategy company.

In 2019, Lindsay and Jeffrey launched Emblem as a standard line of soft seating. In 2022, they expanded Emblem’s custom capabilities by moving into a new production facility in Chino, just outside of Los Angeles. In 2023, they secured alliance partnerships with leading textile brands and expanded Emblem’s line of easy-to-customize standard designs.

Emblem continues to draw inspiration from Jeffrey’s acute sense of design and Lindsay’s drive for efficient problem-solving. Together, they direct Emblem’s growth as a leading source of custom furniture designed for welcoming spaces and built for business.