Eastman Innovation Lab Connects Designers and Brand Owners with Materials

More than 176,000 hits and still going strong. Since the Eastman Innovation Lab (www.EastmanInnovationLab.com) was launched at the end of March 2004, nearly 18,000 designers, design engineers and other professionals have visited the site, a significant proportion of them from Europe.

“With this site, we set out to inspire and help designers in their quest for innovation and product optimisation,” said Gaylon White, Manager, Design Industry Programs at Eastman. “Major design firms continue to register, and the brand owner visitors reads like a Fortune 50 list. And the hits for the entire site are accelerating, 43,000 in just three months this year, compared to 80,000 for all of last year. The Eastman Innovation Lab is the first step toward realising our vision of a creative resource to connect brand owners and designers with inspirational and innovative material solutions.”

Earlier this year, www.EastmanInnovationLab.com received a gold award in the 2005 Industrial Design Excellence Award(IDEA). The competition is co-sponsored by BusinessWeek Magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). A jury of 17 world-renowned designers and critics made the award for design innovation, benefit to the user, benefit to the client/business, ecological responsibility, and appropriate aesthetics and appeal. The Eastman Innovation Lab Web site competed against 423 submissions from 17 countries.

Over the first 14 months, designer reaction like that of Martin Bunce of Tin Horse in Marlborough, UK is typical: “Finally a website that makes materials feel sexy! It's a place we'd be really happy to invite our clients to view material possibilities relevant to our projects, it's great for them to see and hear it from the horse's mouth, and coming from Eastman the information carries added credibility.

”You get the feeling they understand what the designers trying to do; not just in delivering technically feasible solutions, but even how to improve the way we communicate, promote and sell our ideas. This first step is critical, communicating an idea before it's made real, the Eastman Innovation Lab provides inspiration as well as insight to how we improve the way we choose, use and advocate new materials.”

Peter Tennent, Managing Partner at Factory Design in London, UK says: "It is our constant ambition - and, for many of our clients, it is our responsibility - to champion innovation in product and transport design. The perpetual pursuit of creative and novel solutions to motorcycles, airline interiors and domestic appliances is a challenging task, made much easier with the support of people like Eastman and their wonderful Innovation Lab. We are a small company so to have the weight of an operation such as Eastman, who are themselves constantly working to innovate with materials, makes our job as designers so much easier. Materials are at the core of improving the consumer experience and the Innovation Lab is an inspiration. Long may it continue."

The Eastman Innovation Lab Web site is an interactive, community-based resource intended to inspire designers to develop new products and services, while improving existing products and opening new market categories. The site offers a means for materials advancing design and reduced project duration, resulting in better and quicker decisions.

“The development of the Web site is a credible response to the realisation that we can create a win-win situation; designers can benefit from our materials knowledge, and we learn the value of design in product development,” adds White. “Through ongoing dialogue with designers, we can develop this into a valuable resource that they will use time and again.”

Reader enquiries

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