[3][4][5] The chair was designed to be light, stable, easy to stack up, and to minimise tangling the user's feet.

The original model had three plastic legs and a seat made from form-moulded laminated veneer; Jacobsen designed his first building for NOVO Industries on Nordre Fasanvej in 1934–1935 and continued to work for them throughout his career, building several factories in Denmark and Germany.

Allegedly, Fritz Hansen had already been presented with Jacobsen's Ant chair design but was reluctant to put it into production.

When a Novo director visited Jacobsen's studio and showed interest in the model, Jensen told him that it had been created for use in their canteen.

[6] Novo Industries ordered 300 of the chairs, enough to convince Fritz Hansen that it should go into production.