Tandus Wins Two Best of NeoCon Awards

Chicago, IL, June 25, 2007--At the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair in Chicago last week, Tandus earned two Best of NeoCon Gold Awards for the Bas Relief Series by its product brand Monterey as well as for its Inunison Virtual Image Sampling Folders.

Balancing design, technology and sustainability within inunison, its new product system, Tandus

demonstrated at this year’s NeoCon how its four product types – modular, woven, broadloom and six-foot

Powerbond® – can work across the Monterey, C&A, and Crossley brands.

The Bas Relief Series is Suzanne Tick’s latest study in woven broadloom carpet structure. The Series’ two

running-line styles, Monterey’s Bas Relief Rib and Bas Relief Grid, offer the highest relief ever offered in a

carpet for contract sale. Volumes of extra large, twisted yarn bundles provide excessive texture almost as a

“sculpture.” Through a combination of volume and complex yarn twisting techniques, this soft carpet face

absorbs heavy foot traffic, and is designed as a destination carpet for reception, personal and communal

workspaces.

“The profile of this series can be looked at as a design element, with the beautiful woven inlay serving as an

oasis, a fraction of luxury, similar to the way an area rug functions on a hardwood floor,” said Ms. Tick,

Design Director, Tandus. “It’s a new way to combine commercial carpet tile with broadloom and I am

honored to have been recognized by NeoCon for pushing conventional boundaries.”

In addition, Tandus won a Gold Award for its Inunison Virtual Image Sampling Folders, a product that will

minimize the need for physical carpet samples while still providing a complete sample experience.

Two years of national market surveys and book formats were carefully reviewed and modified to ensure that

the folders suited the designers work.

Containing tear-off pads for each colorway, each sample folder pad has 25 color-accurate digital images

replicating physical carpet samples. The specifier uses the folder in the same way that a designer would

use a sample book in the firm’s resource library, but is now encouraged to tear the color swatch out of the

folder – up to 25 uses per color. With the virtual image samples, the book remains intact so that other

designers can use the folder.

Because of the significant financial impact as well as environmental benefits, each sample sheet contains a

virtual image on one side and specifications and positive environmental impacts on the other. Such

environmental benefits include:

· Less dependence on non-renewable resources;

· Sample pads are made from paper, a renewable resource;

· The simulated carpet is color accurate and printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper;

· Pads are 100% recyclable; and

· Life of the book is extended tenfold, requiring fewer folders to be made.

“We’re enhancing the shelf-life of sampling folders with easily replaced digitally modeled images,” said Lee

Schilling, Senior Vice President with Tandus. “Tandus is proud to win a Best of NeoCon Gold Award for our

new patent-pending sample folders, and we encourage other manufacturers to replicate this system of

sampling, because the impact on the carpet industry, environment and beyond could be enormous.“