In recent years, dozens of design Web sites carrying pricey contemporary reissues of iconic mid-century Eames chairs, Castiglioni lamps, and Jacobsen tables have sprung up on the Internet: Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 “Barcelona” chair alone generates 19,000 hits on Google.

The founders of Design Public, a San Francisco-based Web site selling furniture and home wares by contemporary designers, wanted to create something different. Co-owners Sina Djafari and Drew Sanocki, both 33, launched the site (www.designpublic.com) a month ago. Previously, they had sold design online under the moniker Edge*Modern but decided to rebrand: “Edge*Modern wasn’t differentiated enough from every other furniture retailer out there,” Mr. Sanocki said.

Instead of functioning as yet another mid-century museum, Design Public focuses on emerging designers such as MIO Culture and Adapt Design, as well as a few more established players, such as Blu Dot and Dwell bedding.

And as the design of their new Web site suggests with its baby chick logo and flowers growing from the bottom of the screen, the company, when possible, emphasizes green design – products that don’t harm the environment or create unnecessary waste in their manufacture. One example is MIO Culture’s “Bendant” lamp. The lamp is packaged flat, which makes for cheaper shipping. Its designer was so mindful of not wasting materials that the segment in the middle of the pressed-metal chandelier (where the lightbulb goes) pops out when you assemble it and becomes a key chain. (Mr. Djafari noted that not every product on his site is able to boast such an environmentally conscious pedigree, however. “A lot of young designers don’t necessarily have the luxury of choosing where or how to manufacture their products,” he said.)

Another reason for the relaunch of Edge*Modern as Design Public was that the founders felt that “modern means a lot of different things to different people; to some, it means ‘cold and uncomfortable,'” Mr. Djafari said. The word “public” in the new name reflects the company’s interest in building a community, not just a business (though bolstering the former surely doesn’t hurt the latter).

Design Public turned to online user groups to test its identity before relaunching. The new site assumes a wittier, more casual tone in its product descriptions than you’ll find with most modern furniture, which can come wrapped in garlands of pretentious art-speak. Taking a cue from the success of sites likeApartment-Therapy.com, Design Public recently added a blog about design on its homepage. “In this industry in particular, there’s a sense of elitism that scares away potential customers. We want to make design more approachable,” Mr. Djafari said.

The two owners met while in business school at Stanford, where Mr. Djafari had graduated with an undergraduate degree in engineering. After working in more expected positions – Mr. Djafari for an investment firm, Mr. Sanocki at a San Francisco start-up – the friends decided to turn their mutual interest in design into a business endeavor.

Launching a furniture company online comes with both challenges and advantages. Unlike Design Within Reach, a company for whom the partners have “tremendous respect,” Design Public has no print catalog, allowing the company “to be a lot more nimble and react to the market a lot better” than its behemoth competitors, Mr. Djafari said. “We hear from the market that as they get bigger, it takes a lot longer to get new products in the catalog.”

Of course, the most obvious challenge of having an online furniture business is the inability to let customers try out and feel the texture of products before purchasing. “Especially in this industry, people do want to touch and feel things,” Mr. Djafari said. “But a lot more people than we expected are happy to order even large furniture online. It puts the burden on us to provide more information and photographs.”

Though Design Public offers no showroom at present, that hasn’t stopped some customers from taking matters into their own hands. Mr Djafari says that “customers will sometimes wander into our office,” which is located in San Francisco’s “transitional” Soma area, south of Market street. “We figure if they’ve made the trek down here, we should let them have a look.”