Best Chairs For Digital Artists

The Best Drafting Chairs for Long Hours of Work

When you're getting up close and personal with your tabletop art, a drafting chair is essential. It will allow you to reach the perfect height, with varied backs, armrests, ergonomic seating, and more to choose from. Some adjust with more precision than others, while many prioritize comfort over changeability. As you know, an artist might spend countless hours at a time in that drafting chair, and a wooden schoolroom style is just not going to cut it. From high-tech splurges to affordable and simple solutions, find the five drafting chairs most beloved by ARTnews below.

1. Flash Furniture Ergonomic Drafting Chair

This drafting chair is designed much like a classic desk chair but with some ergonomic tweaks that make it perfect for a drafter and artist. Included are both a six-wheel base and a foot ring, to allow for 360-degree resting spots for your tired toes. And with padded armrests, your elbows won't have anything to complain about either. Not a fan? They flip up with the utmost of ease to allow for more arm mobility, if you so choose. The high back of the chair is designed with built-in lumbar support, and the entire chair (back and set, both!) not only tilts backward and forward but rotates 360 degrees, to ensure that there's nowhere you won't be able to reach or see while you're sitting.

2. Office Star Deluxe Drafting Chair

This drafting chair has all the benefits of other ergonomic styles, while allowing for a little more physical and artistic movement, due to its lack of arms and higher seat adjustability (helpful if, say, you're working on a canvas or drafting table that's slightly higher than a traditional desk). The seat itself rises from a low 24.25 inches to a high 33.75 inches, with little fuss or effort. The back is also adjustable, as is the footrest, to make sure that all the essential puzzle pieces fit in to make Goldilocks' perfect chair for you.

3. Boss Office Products Ergonomic Drafting Chair

This drafting chair rings in at less than $100 and is the perfect happy medium between a totally adjustable and comfortable office chair and a more classic drafting stool. The chair rises from a base 24.5-inch position to a high 31-inch position. The only downside is that the footrest is not adjustable, so you may use the ability to rest your feet on it only when the chair is at maximum height. There are three separate armrest options, whether you want none, adjustable, or loop style. And, lastly, the back of the chair can be adjusted with basic movements, to suit your every size and reclining need .

4. Boss Office Products Drafting Stool

Though this drafting chair comes complete with a back for support, it's more like a stool than a chair. The solid, round seat provides comfort with a weight capacity of 275 pounds. The back is adjustable, at an angle as well as forward and back, and the seat, which rises and lowers up to six inches, includes a 360-degree spin and chrome foot ring for additional support.

5. Humanscale Diffrient World Office Desk Chair

This drafting chair is a splurge, to be sure, but it includes all of the bells and whistles that you might come to expect from a professional-quality chair that you, quite frankly, might never want to leave. In a variety of eight different colors, this mesh chair is comfortable as well as fully adjustable. It includes weight-sensitive reclining and a form-sensing mesh technology, to ensure that the chair actually customizes to your needs without requiring self-adjustment. For the manual settings, however, you can adjust the seat depth as well as the seat height, which can be easily done with the flick of a lever.