Impressive across the board
Panels and surfaces give a trade fair stand its feeling. A wealth of new products makes the choice for individual designs wider than ever.
Impressions are largely determined by the look and feel of the materials and surfaces used. The exhibition and event sector has a real need for prime quality flexible materials that allow quick and easy assembly. Manufacturers of panels and surfaces are answering this need with creative developments and new decorative techniques.
Take Plexiglas for example: Everyone knows that this material from Degussa-Röhm, Darmstadt, can be cut and moulded into the required shape. But now, Plexiglas Satinice is also woven into furniture created by Barbara Crettaz and prototyped by the Innovation Centre of the German Weaving Craft at Lichtenfels. The basketwork master craftswoman has designed chairs, easychairs and loungers in eight different colours with a unique look. The company convincingly showed how effective this furniture looks at its exhibition stand at Light + Building in Frankfurt in April.
The interplay of light and Plexiglas really comes into its own when used in yet another application: outdoor sun shading. What's so special about this? Plexiglas Heatstop not only keeps out the sun's rays but also provides heat protection, while the use of woven material means that sliding outside walls remain breathable.
Plexiglas Crystal Ice and Plexiglas Sterling permit hitherto unthinkable applications in decoration and glazing: With a thickness between 2 and 4 mm, Plexiglas Crystal Ice is the thinnest sheet in the range. Currently only available as a transparent material, this product will shortly be available as a coloured extruded material treated with a single-sided or double-sided satin, light-diffusing surface. The co-extruded surfaces meet exacting aesthetic demands while being pleasing to the touch. Moreover, the material is less sensitive to scratches and marks from everyday wear and is firm to grip.
Anyone looking for a sign or decoration that is not only transparent but also adorned with precious metal will be interested in Plexiglas Sterling with a shiny metallic surface. The 3-mm thick plate can be processed like any conventional material. The gold or silver gilded surface can be engraved with lettering or decoration which can be made luminous on clear substrate material. The transparent, glossy substrate material gives the sheets an elegant impression of depth. The material is available with a single-sided silver or gold surface on a clear substrate or a double-sided silver or gold surface on black.
For an especially magical light effect, there is Plexiglas Radiant. The ambient light refracts on the acrylic glass surface. The result is a changing array of rainbow colours depending on the viewing angle. Mirror-like reflections are produced by the partially transparent properties of the material. If a few special instructions are observed, the 3 mm thick sheet can be sawn, milled, drilled, polished, and glued just like standard types.
Anyone looking for warmer materials and shades is bound find something suitable in the collection of 233 designs produced by wodego in Neumarkt. At ZOW in Bad Salzuflen this February, the company presented its 30 new decorative panels of the season, most of which feature a warm spectrum of colours with harmonising contrasts. The 2006 collection of designs impresses with its lively-structured wood panels with interesting highlights. The collection also contains a few noteworthy products like the fiery exotic Indian Apple and a re-interpretation of walnut with multilayered use of colour. Extravagant affects can be achieved by combining them with natural single-colour decors and the latest bold colours. This wide-ranging programme is rounded off by unobtrusively veined classic surfaces like light or dark cherry and some very natural oaks.
After the success of its decor collages last year, wodego has again compiled an interesting collection for exhibition building, shop fitting, furniture and interior construction. All collages have been designed to meet the differing requirements and trends in interior fitting and provide inspiration for individual combinations. Now for the first time they are available in two versions, serving different worlds of colour and design. Manufacturers as well as designers and architects can implement or expand their ideas for a whole range of different projects.
VEKA, Sendenhorst, has added Vekaplan CX to its comprehensive range of panels. The salient feature of this new panel is its stability and twist rigidity. It is especially suitable for use in exhibition stand, store and sign construction and for building displays. This lightweight, co-extruded board is available in any colour if enough are ordered and, because it is suitable for individual design using digital and screen printing, it can be used for a multitude of applications in interior architecture. The new board is available in thicknesses 8 and 10 mm and sizes 1560 x 3050 and 2030 x 3050 mm.
Then there are the 24 new decor innovations from Thermopal, headquartered in Leutkirch, Allgäu, which offer everything including a Mediterranean feel-good atmosphere, exclusive precious woods, fresh uni-colour decor ranges, and enigmatic fantasy creations, for any number of different design needs. A new structure, natural wood pores, not only gives conventional wood decors a realistic look but also enables extravagant effects with uni-coloured surface finishes. This innovation is available for all decors of this long established company.
To help architects and interior furnishing specialists, Thermopal has updated its planning CD. It contains more than 250 original textures including the new 2006 designs. The repeatable textures allow fast and realistic planning with 3D design, animation and CAD. This exceptional service also applies to the quick availability of its products: No fewer than 86 designs can be ordered short-term as HPL, melamine-faced decorative panels or HPL composite board.
In a special show in May, the laminates manufacturer Westag & Getalit based in Rheda-Wiedenbrück presented design solutions for interior designers, exhibition and shop fitters, and product and packaging designers at the Material Connexion Cologne material library. The exhibition was dominated by large-format digital prints with high-abrasion resistant surfaces enabling individual surface designs, such as flowers and landscapes.
Westag & Getalit is a pioneer of HPL digital printing. Their innovation is that digital prints can now be reproduced in large-surface formats using high-quality surface materials. The HPL prints feature special protective film made of melamine resin making the surface highly abrasion, impact, light and heat resistant. They can be manufactured in dimensions up to 5.2 m in length and 1.3 m in width. Yet another innovation topic at the special show were the surface designs made of the mouldable mineral material Getacore with its natural look and warm feel. The available spectrum of colours ranges from shades of white and black to grey, blue, green and bordeaux. Whether flat or curved - Getacore can be individually shaped and processed either horizontally or vertically. The range of possible applications has been extended still further with the product Getacore Star. This collection encompasses designs in the colours blue, red, grey, and dark grey, and provides elegant sparkle with glittery effects in gold and silver.
Low weight, a high level of inherent stability and, of course, printability are the salient features of KAPAplast lightweight board. With it, large-format images can be mounted in less than five minutes. Alcan Kapa, Osnabrück, claims, for example, that the Simpson Group (UK) can save a full two hours per picture when fitting Deichmann shops compared with the vinyl graphics used previously. David Pass from the Simpson Group can vouch for it: "The plastic-coated covering layers make for a more lasting surface than other lightweight panels - and the panel also doubles as a high-quality printing surface. The low weight of the panels means we can mount them with Velcro, which simplifies and streamlines the whole process."
In addition to its KAPA lightweight boards, Alcan Composites also manufactures a wide range of board materials for display and sign making. These include, for example, FOREXclassic rigid foam plastic boards, Dibond aluminium composite boards and FOAM-X lightweight boards.
Individuality is in demand. Besides its large selection of designs, Polyrey Deutschland, Düsseldorf, also offers options for implementing individual design ideas with Signature. Surfaces provide a communication medium that can be adorned with logos, photos or slogans. The following materials are available: Polyrey HPL (laminated panels, easy to process, bendable, suitable for all applications), Panoprey (melamine-faced chipboard, ideal for furniture and partition walls), Compact (solid grade laminate for demanding environments) and Polyprey (HPL-covered chipboard or MDF board).
If a surface is to be refurbished rather than replaced, DI-NOC film supplied by 3M, Neuss, can be used to produce a new look. The flexible, structured films replicate a host of different surfaces including wood, marble, metal and leather, and create new effects indoors and out. This product can benefit many different three-dimensional surfaces including furniture, floors, walls and columns. The film can simply be applied to worn surfaces to freshen and upgrade them.
The special Comply adhesive technology makes films particularly easy to handle, allowing them to be applied without blistering and tucks. 3M DI-NOC patterned films with permanent adhesive are abrasion, scratch, and solvent resistant and easy to process. Beyond that they have a guaranteed service life of up to five years in outdoor use and up to twelve years if used indoors.
But surfaces can also be made to perform additional functions: The mila-wall modules produced by MBA, Reutlingen, are continuously being further developed and expanded. The latest newcomer to the market is the mila-wall sound wall module. This is a wall module from Series 100 with a modified interior. Invisible from the outside, special coils cause the entire wall which is fitted with a membrane to vibrate, producing sounds with excellent HiFi quality. Sound installations can now be integrated directly into exhibitions and presentations without installing or concealing loudspeakers. In this case, the wall is a partition and loudspeaker in one.
m+a report Nr.4 / 2006 vom 15.06.2006
m+a report vom 15. Juni 2006