Tandus Launches blink, an Online Custom Sampling P
Chicago, IL, June 13--Today at NeoCon in Chicago, Tandus, a leading manufacturer of commercial floor coverings, unveiled blink, the first online sampling program that utilizes digital tufting technology to create custom modular and broadloom carpets.
With blink, interior designers can create their own virtual custom samples with immediate results.
"Tandus is focused on a single goal - to deliver better products to our customers, in better ways," said Lee Schilling, senior vice president, Tandus. "We often hear from design professionals that the floor is one of the few remaining design elements that they can utilize to make a space unique and reflect their vision. blink is a tool that encourages designers to explore their creativity and experiment during the custom process without sacrificing time or resources."
The first web tool to allow such extensive participation by designers in the custom process, blink is housed on Tandus' new online showroom. The web site is linear and intuitive, taking designers through a simple four-step process that allows them to choose from hundreds of patterns and colors from the three Tandus brands - Monterey, C&A, and Crossley.
Specifiers utilize these virtually developed digital prints to create preliminary designs in the early rounds of the selection process. They can then choose their favorites for conventional physical sampling, thus reducing the time spent narrowing down choices and reducing the number of actual custom samples produced.
The advantages specifiers realize by utilizing blink include:
-- Fast response (digital prints delivered within 24 hours)
-- Color accuracy
-- Realistically textured
-- Multiple perspectives of scale and style
-- Constructing and blending solid, barber pole and air-entangled yarns
-- The ability to choose colors from five yarn systems
-- Reduced environmental impact
How It Works
-- Designers first choose from among more than 100 tufted patterns and yarn constructions including solid, barber pole or air-entangled.
-- Specifiers then apply color from automatically enabled color libraries.
-- The samples are immediately visible online at full scale and in sample room scenes, by market segment. Modular styles may be installed into the room scenes in a range of sizes.
-- Color accurate, realistic prints, digitally tufted by NeoCon Gold award-winning SIM from Tricycle technology, are delivered with 24 hours of request.
-- Favorites may be saved in a password-protected portfolio.
The program also reduces the sampling process environmental footprint. blink prints require 95% less energy and water to produce than an average carpet sample. They are also designed to be completely recycled into paper products, alleviating unnecessary materials waste. The packaging in which blink prints are delivered, which also serves as a project folder, is comprised of 100% post-consumer fibers (20% FSC certified), manufactured with energy from wind power.
Tandus partnered with Tricycle, Inc. in development of the program. "In a fashion-driven industry such as interiors manufacturing, being able to fulfill a customer's sampling requests fast and accurately is essential," said Tricycle president and chief operating officer Jonathan Bragdon. "The Tandus brands are known for quality products, for serving the architect and designer community in innovative ways, and for pushing sustainability forward in their design and manufacturing process. Through blink, they are now bringing all of these strengths to the sampling process, for the benefit of their customers."
Tricycle, Inc. is an international, privately held corporation offering evolutionary products and services to the manufacturers of contract interiors. Tricycle's trademarks include SIM from Tricycle, the SIM+Factory, Cre8tiv, and Apso. For more information, visit www.tricycleinc.com
