Design Week Chicago 2025 showcases bold commercial flooring trends - July 2025

By Darius Helm and Meg Scarbrough

This year’s commercial interiors show, held in Chicago from June 9 to 11 and split between The Mart (NeoCon) and Fulton Market-and notably concluding without interruption of rain-drew tens of thousands of design professionals and other stakeholders. The NeoCon show in The Mart, in its 56th edition, welcomed nearly 50,000 attendees.

The whole commercial design show experience is still redefining itself. The Mart, with permanent showrooms on the third, 10th and 11th floors and temporary spaces on the seventh floor, is still a great draw, and it’s hard to beat the efficiency of visiting so many showrooms clustered together. Fulton Market is open and expansive, with its low buildings and cobblestoned streets and generally more leisurely vibe, a distinct contrast from The Mart, and with the showrooms scattered over 16 square blocks, it requires a time investment to get around and see everything.

Most of those attending DesignWeek visited both Fulton Market and The Mart-and the handful of exhibitors with spaces just outside of it-and judging from the crowds, it looked like the majority spent the first day at The Mart and the second in Fulton Market. As usual, the crowds were slower on the third day.

Design and color trends

In terms of the broader built environment, the trend continues toward human-centered spaces that are increasingly biophilic and also flexible and adaptable to various uses. Also, sensory-based design is more important than ever as a way of engaging people more fully in their environments.

In terms of flooring, on the carpet side, the most prominent look at the show was cream and black/near black constructions. Those collections, and other neutral lines, which were most of what was shown, offered dulled accent colors in some colorways. The other big carpet trend was pattern complexity conveyed through texture, creating almost architectural motifs-lots of intricate geometrics that on a larger scale presented an irregularity that seemed almost biophilic. Many of these carpet collections referenced classic designs, textiles and menswear through expressive, authentic reinterpretations, including playing with scale and drawing different patterns and constructions together into single styles.

Also, last year saw a lot of blue and green-hued colorways in carpet. This year, not so much. Those colors are still there, but now there are also a lot of earthy fire colors, like rust. And like greys were more common than earth tones.

On the resilient side, there was color and creativity, and plenty of takes on terrazzo and wood. Colored textile visuals were fairly common, along with some abstract faux carpet visuals. Overall, there seemed to be more color this year, even in traditionally earthy looks in stone and wood. Patcraft, for instance, had colored wood in resilient.

Also important at the show was customization, enabling specifiers to fine-tune offerings to better suit their applications.

Exhibitor highlights

Shaw Contract’s showroom on the 10th floor of The Mart was full of surprises this year: the entrance flooring introducing the brand’s entry into ceramic and porcelain with Stellar, a pale stone/concrete look elevated with sporadic clusters of aggregate; the new Dye Lab colors and the profusion of color in general; the bound rug display; the attendees clustered around a long table in the back customizing their Shaw Contract tote bags in the “Design for All” pop-up experience.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, Shaw Contract garnered a lot of attention for its dramatic entry into ceramics, debuting not just floor tile but also extensive wall tile ranges, including dimensional zellige-style wall tiles showcased in a rustic green. In all, it introduced eight collections in the new product category. The firm also drew from its past, adding new colors, including a deep lavender and a rich green, to its Dye Lab collection of beck-dyed products, a hugely successful design introduced in 2012.

ColorLink 2.5mm and 5mm LVT added to the color story with a collection of low-key linear textile visuals with a natural grasscloth-like look in not just grey and earth tone neutrals but also in shades of green, blue, yellow, orange, purple and red. ColorLink, which is made in the U.S. and features 30% recycled content, garnered a HiP award for Health & Wellness Flooring, and Dye Lab was a HiP Iconic Product honoree.

Under the Coexist line, the firm introduced EcoWorx Resilient and EcoWorx carpet tile styles, along with ceramic wall styles. The carpet tile line includes organic designs marked by the look of hand-crafted irregular accents and high-energy tonal designs composed of interwoven structured pattern. The resilient also has a textile aesthetic. EcoWorx is a PVC-free polyethylene material that Shaw has used to back its carpet tile for over a quarter century.

The firm won a Best of NeoCon Innovation award for Technology: Integrated Solutions with its Inspiration Curator. “It’s kind of like a back-end AI tool where you can upload inspiration images, a room board, design board, and it will source through all of our products and put together up to 15 products for you,” Reesie Duncan, Shaw Contract’s vice president of global design, told Floor Focus.

Also noteworthy was Texture Study, a broadloom collection displayed as bound rugs in a range of custom shapes-the firm has a process for binding rugs in-house.

Mohawk Group’s new 10,000-square-foot showroom in Fulton Market, which opened to the public last fall, was on full display and buzzing with energy. Visitors were ushered through a dimly lit-and very dramatic-arched tunnel that opened out into the vast, high-ceiling space soaked in sunshine, color and texture.

The theme this year was “Shared Senses.” As more workers return to the office, it is becoming increasingly important to make those spaces comfortable and connected, according to Mark Page, Mohawk Group’s vice president of design. The company said the idea behind the theme was to explore how design can “profoundly engage all human senses, creating spaces that enhance wellbeing and connection.”

As part of that effort at Design Days, Mohawk presented its MultiSensory collection, a soft surface offering in broadloom and rugs, which is expected to be released this summer. It is available in five styles-Dimensional Fade, Sensory Grain, Whispered Layers, Loomed Harmony, and Spectral View-and in 14 colorways. The company said the goal is to bring a tactile connection and sense of comfort to commercial spaces.

The collection was honored with a HiP Award from Interior Design in the Workplace: Carpet category. Mohawk was also awarded in the Education/Institutional/Government Flooring category for the Fractal Findings collection.

In Interface’s showroom directly across from The Mart, the firm showcased a new global collection from David Oakey called Dressed Lines designed to capture the essence of mid-century modern design. It comes in six styles in plank and square formats. Colorways range from warm neutrals to high-contrast accents. While designs like Angular Times and Accent Hour are bold and dramatic, with a field of angled chevron-like patterns overlaid with contrasting banding is a semi-irregular format, others are more reined in, including linear and small-scale grid designs and some rich textures.

In the space, Interface also previewed Dressed Lines coordinates, including two of the most dazzling styles at the show, Knot A Problem I and Knot A Problem II, one a cream field with a design of black lines and knots that looks hand drawn, and the other with the colors reversed. To dramatic effect, the two coordinates were installed side by side in a seating area in the showroom.

Interface product designer Harmony Walker developed an LVT collection called Lasting Impressions, a tonal design that looks like a tatami pattern irregularly worn over time, along with a dynamic overall organic reminiscent of hand-finished plaster. The 4.5mm product comes in two formats-50cm x 1m and 25cm x 1m-and 12 classic commercial colors.

Also noteworthy was Stellar Horizons, designed by Carson Machell-Archer, lead designer for Flor. The references in the collection, which includes two square Flor styles, are accessible. For instance, Meteor looks like a dense shower of parallel meteors, Lunar Landing (a Flor style) resembles a star-filled sky, Moonwalk looks like a grid of images of negative-space phases of the moon.

AHF Products, which had a space on the seventh floor of The Mart, seems to have completed the integration of porcelain producer Crossville, which the firm acquired toward the end of 2023, and it offered a lot of new Crossville products at the show. Crossville was the first U.S. firm to bring thin tiles to the domestic market through its partnership with Italy’s Laminam. At The Mart, the firm introduced its 2mm mesh-backed Gemini wall panels.

Other Crossville lines displayed in the space include Sand Garden, which is inspired by Japanese Zen gardens, and Sociale, with visuals inspired by global stones. Sociale, which was first introduced residentially, features the firm’s proprietary Visual Touch technology, which actually increases the coefficient of friction when the tile is wet.

AHF also unveiled the Armstrong Flooring Kaleido Color Lab, an LVT program customizable for 2,500-square-foot minimums. Developed by Oxana Dallas, principal designer, commercial for AHF, the process starts with the selection of a design base from three imaginative textile-inspired designs, followed by choosing a highlight color, and finally the size of the product. Kaleido’s curated palette is made up of 28 saturated accent colors. Kaleido is made at AHF’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility.

In addition, the firm has taken its densified hardwood to the commercial market with Armstrong Flooring TimberTones, manufactured in Somerset, Kentucky.

The J+J Flooring showroom in Fulton Market was full of excitement as the team celebrated what is shaping up to be a busy year with several new releases.

Among the new releases is the new Moiré collection, which expands the Kinetex line with a focus on visual dynamism. The line is inspired by the moiré effect, which is an optical phenomenon that occurs when two repeating patterns are overlaid at a slight angle or offset, resulting in a new, often unwanted, pattern of interference fringes. It is available in 24”x24” modular tiles that feature overlapping motifs, producing a subtle wave-like movement, and comes in 24 colorways-16 neutrals, four solid tones and four accent hues. It’s also PVC-free, composed of 45% post-consumer recycled PET content (equivalent to roughly 27 plastic bottles per tile), and certified NSF/ANSI-140 Platinum with a Red List-Free Declare label.

J+J is also launching a new modular carpet collection inspired by the rhythm of the ocean called Tides. The collection is available in two styles-Ebb and Flow-in ten colorways. An elevated display table in the middle of the showroom paired carpet samples with elements from the ocean, including shells and coral, to highlight the color and movement of the tiles.

The company is also releasing a new terrazzo-look LVT this summer called Modern Utility.

J+J also showcased Chemistry, a modular carpet collection featuring two designs-Experiment and Measurement-which was released earlier this year. It’s available in 24”x24” tiles in 12 colorways.

In Aquafil’s showroom on the 11th floor of The Mart, stylishly decorated with carpet by David Oakey from Interface’s Granite Mountain collection, Aquafil USA president Franco Rossi talked about how his firm is focused on “making carpet fun again.” The firm introduced three new yarn systems for Econyl, the firm’s 100% recycled (pre- and post-consumer) nylon 6 brand, designed for use in not just tufted carpet, but also for woven goods and area rugs.

ReLana offers the dulled, subtly irregular look of natural wool; ReSeta, which comes in bright and dull finishes, brings the shimmer and softness of silk (and synthetic silks); and Terra brings the look of raw, natural fibers, like sisal and seagrass, to woven constructions. A wall display showcased the fibers through a variety of framed samples.

According to Rossi, the fiber styles were developed through finishing, adjusting DPF (denier per filament) and tweaking the profile-the cross-sectional shape of the fiber.

Patcraft won several awards at this year’s Design Week, including four NeoCon awards and a HiP award. Its ReMaterial PVC-free resilient products, made of the same polyethylene backing found on Patcraft and Shaw Contract’s EcoWorx backings, were a particular hit. ReMaterial Block + Blend won a NeoCon gold for LVT, ReMaterial Slab + Stone won a gold for Healthcare Flooring, and ReMaterial Mix + Mason was an honoree in HiP’s Environmental Impact category. And on the carpet side, Modern Finds won NeoCon gold, as well.

Modern Finds, designed by Erin Helm, is a carpet tile collection that expresses the interplay between concepts from textiles, handwoven goods and tufted constructions. Some of the styles look like classic textile patterns seen from the point of view of tufting culture and others are blends of distinct reinterpreted motifs assembled in generous geometric proportions and an irregular but dynamic flow. All have a reverberating quality that draws the eye. The collection comes in a palette of nine neutrals made up of greys, charcoals and earthier midtones.

The ReMaterial collections include Mix + Mason, a terrazzo design with a classic aggregate visual offered across the spectrum from earthy colorways to neutrals with some smoky pastels to styles with bolder blue and green backgrounds. And Block + Blend is a wood visual combining straight and angled planks in short sections like an irregular parquet motif using not just contrasting wood tones but also colored wood looks in teal, blue and green shades. And Slab + Stone offers stone visuals in 21 colors, including some more saturated hues-blue, green, teal, yellow, orange. ReMaterial has a 2,500 PSI compared to 1,500 PSI typical for LVT, according to Kent Clauson, Patcraft’s recently promoted co-leader.

In addition to its permanent showroom on the 10th floor of The Mart, Patcraft also took a space on the seventh floor to showcase its colorful speckled resinous poured flooring systems targeting commercial segments like healthcare and biosciences, along with Geometrix, the firm’s system of measuring and cutting resilient sheet so that it goes to the jobsite ready to be installed, reducing waste and downtime.

MSI had a space in the Design Resource Center on the first floor of The Mart, a location that will be fully designed and permanent next year, focused on porcelain countertops and flooring, along with natural stone, engineered wood and LVT. All told, the firm can offer over 5,000 SKUs.

On display in the space was Everlife Waterproof Flooring, an 8mm product (6mm + 2mm pad) that comes in a 9”x48” format with a 22 mil wearlayer in a range of wood looks. Also showcased was Q Studio, which uses domestically sourced quartz product for a countertop line.

At its Fulton Market showroom, Tarkett introduced several new flooring products, emphasizing material circularity and indoor environmental health. One of the main product launches was Resonant Spaces, a carpet tile collection built on the company’s PVC-free Ethos backing, which is polyvinyl butyral reclaimed from windshield glass. The product features three pattern options-Beneath, Intangible and Subtle Forces-and nine colorways and is designed to be recyclable through Tarkett’s ReStart take-back program.

Tarkett also expanded its High Frequency line, available as both carpet tile and Powerbond RS hybrid carpet. Powerbond RS is certified Asthma & Allergy Friendly and includes features such as welded seams and an impermeable cushion backing that help reduce allergen buildup. Tarkett also showcased its Mycocycle recycling process, which debuted last year, utilizing mycelium to break down old Powerbond flooring for reuse, highlighting efforts to close the loop on soft surface products.

In the vinyl category, Tarkett showcased Color + Light, a luxury vinyl tile line built on its Contour platform. The collection includes a substantial 32-mil wearlayer and protective top coat. While designed for visual impact, the product also includes low VOC content and is eligible for recycling through ReStart.

Tarkett’s Johnsonite 2025 Colors of the Year and expanded Millwork Wall Base rubber profiles were also on view, with colors informed by natural elements. These accessory products are manufactured in North America and designed to meet the company’s material transparency and emissions standards.

Visitors to the showroom also had a chance to experience Tarkett’s interactive CoLab maker space, which let visitors create their own unique pieces of wall art.

Additionally, designer Omoleye Simmons, vice president of design for Tarkett North America, was honored with a HiP Creative Director award from Interior Design.

At Daltile across from The Mart, the showroom-and its representatives-were awash with brilliant colors, a nod to the company’s new Colorology program. The goal is to streamline color coordination by offering over 40 core floor-tile shades, each paired with wall and mosaic tiles. Designers can choose between coordinating options-closely matching tones for a seamless, monochromatic look-or pairing options, which introduce subtle tonal variations for added depth. It comes in 11 base color families, ranging from whites and neutrals to vibrant blues, greens, yellows, reds, purples, browns, greys and blacks.

The brilliant colors echoed a theme seen across many showrooms this year in Chicago.

Other new releases for Daltile include three porcelain wall tiles-Artefino Element, Artefino Jewel and Artefino Vintage-as well as a colorbody porcelain, Haddonstone, which is a 24”x48” 2cm outdoor paver.

This year, Stonepeak, which won the Overall Best in Show at Coverings in April, released three new collections. Mystère is an interpretation of the classic Venetian terrazzo, available in nine colorways and two finishes (Structured and Semi-Polished), in three sizes (12”x24”, 24”x24”, 24”x48”) and a stacked mosaic. Lythos, a blend of French limestone and Ambrosia marble, comes in five neutral shades, semi-polished finish, and three sizes (12”x24”, 24”x24”, 24”x48”). And Victorian Stone, inspired by English stone, is available in five finishes (Natural, Natural Plus, Structured, Flamed, Antislip) and six sizes from 12”x24” all the way to 48”x108”.

Stonepeak also recently released 12mm XL porcelain slab colors: Brilho Azul, Beleza, Crystal Onyx, Marine Opulence, Mystic Cascade, Silver Serenity and Namibia White. They are available in 60”x126” and are part of Limitless Porcelain, a collection of 12mm porcelain slabs engineered to be applied anywhere-from indoor and outdoor spaces to tabletops, countertops, flooring and walls.

Mannington Commercial’s 10th floor Mart showroom was installed with several new carpet and LVT collections this year, including two that won NeoCon Silver-one in carpet tile for Dapper Dialogue and one in LVT for Grounded Beginnings. Dapper Dialogue takes its inspiration from textiles and menswear, including Arie, a crisp design of large intersecting geometries creating polygonal islands of pattern; Rachel, with irregular textural banding; Patricia, a smaller scale tonal textured product with a subtle herringbone impression; and Deree, an elevated linear with subtle movement.

Grounded Beginnings, a design by Alison Curran, was one of the outstanding product designs at the show. At first glance it could be a terrazzo with dark, earthy hues over a pale field, but a closer look reveals a captivating interplay between positive and negative space, suggesting hidden forms

Wild Threads, designed by Alissa Hudson, uses Aquafil’s Econyl recycled nylon 6 for designs inspired by the organic movements of nature, with one pattern constrained by linear geometries with a biophilic rise and fall of pebbled patterns across the organic field and the other that layers on an open and expressive pattern suggestive of leaves and twigs strewn by nature.

Also noteworthy: Amtico Digital Mosaics, which won a HiP award in Hospitality: Hard Flooring. The LVT, with a 40 mil wearlayer, was displayed in a classic mosaic pattern with in-register texturing, and it’s fully customizable.

In its 11th floor Mart showroom, HMTX unveiled the Teknoflor Agility collection of gluedown LVT designed by Natalia Smith, HMTX’s senior director of commercial design. The 5mm line, with a 22 mil wearlayer, comes in 9”x60 formats for wood looks and 18”x36” for linen and stone visuals. It comes in 30 SKUs, including both neutrals and more saturated colorways.

Also on display were sheet goods, including two traditional PVC sheet constructions, Symphony and Elevated Classics, as well as Healthscapes, a PVC-free homogeneous product made of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). According to the Norwalk, Connecticut-based firm, TPU tiles are on the way.

In April of this year, HMTX announced the nationwide expansion of its partnership with Spartan Surfaces, a specialty flooring distributor. And in May, group president Debarati Sen was promoted to CEO, with Harlan Stone, CEO since 1994, transitioning into the role of executive chairman. And Metroflor president Russ Rogg was named president of HMTX Contract and Trade.

In its popup studio in the Fulton Market, Milliken highlighted several new releases.

The Open Studio collection is a carpet tile line inspired by artistic processes like brushwork, screen printing and plaster textures, designed to encourage creative expression in commercial interiors. It features four patterns-Halftone, Overlay, Primer, and Canvas-and is available in eight neutral colorways with an optional multicolor accent (Canvas Trace). It’s engineered for high-traffic environments, offers enhanced comfort and acoustics with WellBac backing, and is carbon-neutral, Red List-free and low maintenance. It was also a finalist in the 2025 HiP Awards.

Light and Shadows is a carpet tile line inspired by the artistry of hand-applied plaster, featuring four patterns-Etched, Fresco, Impasto, and Stucco. Available in a palette of 16 earthy and mineral hues, it is also PVC- and Red List-free, and carbon-neutral under Milliken’s M/Pact initiative.

En Plein Air is Milliken’s third PVC-free resilient collection and is available in three patterns-Bristle, Brushstroke and Gouache.

And if new floors weren’t enough, Milliken had a special puppy cuddling station on Tuesday of the show.

Bentley Mills’ popup showroom in Fulton Market highlighted its latest collection, Lost Language, which is available in four carpet designs-Clear the Air, Love Triangle, Rare Form and To the Point. The company says these patterns juxtapose soft curves and precise geometry, offering a design language that blends linear and organic forms with textured depth. The collection was a HiP honoree in the Workplace-Carpet category this year.

Alongside Lost Language, Bentley showcased Prima Vista, a collection of hand-tufted, hand-loomed and hand-knotted wool rugs that was introduced last year. The spotlighted line, Heathered Highlands, draws inspiration from the Scottish moors and is made from 100% ethically sourced wool and is available in standard and custom sizes up to 15’ wide.

Bentley also announced it has become the first U.S. commercial carpet manufacturer to incorporate 100% post-consumer calcium carbonate-sourced from reclaimed carpet-into all of its backing systems, marking a major step toward circular manufacturing. The material, processed by Circular Polymers by Ascend and certified by SCS Global, is now part of Bentley’s standard production with no added cost or performance trade-offs. This move supports California’s AB 863 recycling requirements.

Germany’s Parador took a space at the Metropolis Sustainability Lab on the 11th floor of The Mart to talk about its flooring programs. The firm started out in 1977 as a furniture manufacturer and added flooring the following decade. Now, it’s targeting the U.S. market, and in fact, its CEO, Neel Bradham, is an American whose background is steeped in flooring, including a short stint with Mohawk, nearly five years with Milliken and over a decade with Interface.

From its facilities in Germany and Austria, Parador manufactures engineered wood, laminate and vinyl flooring, as well as a PVC-free hard surface flooring called Modular One, which the firm is adapting for the commercial market with a gluedown format-in the European market, it’s currently a click product in wood, concrete and stone looks.

Modular One’s construction includes a polypropylene and mineral top layer, an HDF core modified for wet conditions and a cork back. For the U.S. market, the firm is focusing on its 8mm click product as well as 2.5mm and 4.5mm gluedown products, both of which are fully waterproof.

Aayers Flooring, headquartered in Kent, Washington, produces engineered hardwood through manufacturing partnerships. The firm, which has been in the flooring business for about a decade, is mostly focused on the hospitality sector. On display were three new styles from its Rocky Ridge collection-Coralstone, Pearl Coast and Golden Sapphire-in French oak and hickory with sliced face veneers, along with Aria, Eleanor, Isla and Noa from the Air collection of sawn face red oak. Colors are mostly natural midtones, but also featured are some paler hues along with some rich and warm oak colorations.

Schluter Systems is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and at its seventh-floor showroom in The Mart it spotlighted Schiene, the aluminum finishing profile that protects tile edges, which was the original invention by founder Werner Schluter that launched the firm. Notably, Schiene is still the firm’s most specified profile, though it now comes in a wide range of finishes and has expanded beyond aluminum into PVC and stainless steel.

Also on display were Schluter’s range of shower waterproofing systems, uncoupling membranes and other specialty profiles.

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