LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Bonar Floors Wins Textile Category in the 2009 FESPA Digital Print Awards
Thursday 18. June 2009 - UK-based flooring solutions provider Bonar Floors (now trading as Forbo Flooring Systems*) has been named Textile Category winner in the FESPA Digital Print Awards 2009, supported by HP.
Beating stiff competition in this increasingly popular category to win the Textile Award, Bonar Floors were singled out for their innovative floor solutions. Milan-based architectural practice Sottsass Associati approached Bonar Floors to produce a range of original designs using Bonar Floors flocked flooring – a unique, velvety, minimalist textile floor cladding. The Milanese company had never worked with the material, so it created an interesting design challenge being the first company to exploit high definition digital printing techniques on flocked flooring.
Bonar Floors overcame a number of obstacles to effectively fulfill the client brief. The Reggiani Giano machine, a clothing textile printer, was specially adapted to meet the requirements needed to create the innovative flocked flooring solution. The flock, which is 2mm long, had to be dyed and fixed to its roots – Bonar Floors has a 10-year quality guarantee that had to be met – so its design team and colorist research technicians worked with the Reggiani machine experts for 18 months to achieve the desired results. The machine also needed a specially acclimatised chamber, which meant that the entire facility was moved from one part of the factory to another to achieve the optimum operating environment.
Sally Dipple, Marketing Innovation Manager, Bonar Floors comments: “Demonstrating the fine, photographic detail of the designs, incorporating brilliant, contrasting colours, and achieving a three-dimensional visual effect had never before been attainable using traditional printing methods. By using Bonar Floors innovative concepts combined with its original research and development programme, we were able to customise and uniquely adapt the Reggiani Giano machine to our manufacturing requirements, making it possible to achieve these aesthetics for the first time. Only by using this new digital printing technique could we achieve the high-quality results necessary to realise Sottsass Associatis design intent.”
Jason Holmes celebrated with other Category Winners at an exclusive dinner event in Amsterdam on 11th May, where he received his prize certificate from FESPA board member Lascelle Barrow.
Commenting on Bonar Floors success, Nigel Steffens, FESPA CEO, said:
“Year on year, we are witnessing the ever-increasing popularity of the Textile category which continues to attract higher numbers of entrants to the Digital Print Awards competition, making the task of selecting only one exceptional piece of work a difficult undertaking. Bonar Floors entry triumphed over competition from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa because of its outstanding innovative nature, exemplifying the incredible results achievable when combining digital printing with inspirational ideas and imagination.”
Steffens concludes: “Textile applications are increasing in their appeal, reflected in FESPAs commitment to the Digital Textile Conference and our dedicated textile event within FESPA 2010 under the FESPA Fabric brand.”