Blu Dot was founded by John Christakos, Charles Lazor and Maurice Blanks. Blu Dot began as a loose collaborative of three college friends trained in architecture and art, based on the premise that design should be affordable. The partners chose furniture as the subject of interest and opened a studio and operations in Minneapolis in 1996. Blu Dot has begun to realize their vision with a collection of over 40 pieces that are both elegantly abstract and unambiguously functional. Blu Dot pieces are in the permanent collections of several museums, have been seen on the sets of well-known television shows such as Friends and ER, and have won numerous national and international awards. The collection is distributed in better stores around the world.