Earlier this month, the ABDA Design team had a group outing to the Surface Design Show. It provided our design team with an opportunity to spot trends, see how they are evolving and talk to suppliers face to face. This is valuable for seeing what’s new on the market and learning about new products to help with future designs.

Five standouts from the show

“This year I noticed lots of recycling products that clearly showed the recycled content within them such as broken pieces of plastic.” Sam Pearce, designer

“Terrazzo style still looked strong and pastel/mint green was a popular colour. There was a lot of 3D textures to materials too. A supplier that really caught my eye was Foresso, it is made from waste timber chips, offcuts and water-based non-toxic binder. This gives it a natural look and has amazing colours.” Michael Hall, senior designer

“The Vita Nova stand was fantastic and a great concept. The stand was there to promote recycling items such as solid surface samples which typically just go to landfill when they are no longer required.” Rachael Sheldon, senior designer

“There were a lot of products supporting the importance of sustainability. More recycled products or recyclable at the end of life. A lot of products around the show, like wayfinding signage, was made from recycled materials. So, the whole show was not only hosting a variety of suppliers but also using their products around the event.” Anabel Twitchell-Requena, designer

“I was really looking forward to seeing Smile Plastics, who were sponsoring the show. I came across them on LinkedIn prior to the show and did some research. Their approach to sustainability and reusing and reimagining products in a different way really intrigued me. I couldn’t wait to see their Earth Collection Set, as this really stood out visually as well as the reasoning behind it. Sustainability, natural materials, reimagining waste into new and usable products and recycling were hot topics at this show. CDUK had an initiative to take back old products to reuse them, they created a very immersive experience with a robot.” Tansin Blankley, designer

Exploring as a team

This year the designers went to the show together and this made a huge difference to the overall experience. Our designer, Melissa Bratton believes that going to events as a team inspires creativity as they can find inspiration for current or future projects together. Taking time out to visit shows like this really helps her increase her knowledge on products and companies which then helps with her individual and the overall team’s creativity.

Sam felt that the ability to reference other designers to the reps, as opposed to saying ‘I’ll pass this information on’ made the whole experience more valuable. All the team specialise in different things so by having a wider knowledge and presence there meant the reps could engage with ABDA Design more.

The team is all over the country currently so getting everyone together at the same time is hard but by visiting this show as a group, Rachael felt they could all bounce ideas off one another as they walked round.

Tansin feels it is important to be able to see new products and materials in person, where possible, to see and hear first-hand the benefits and how they can implement these into their designs. The team always do a great job of sharing new products over email or doing ‘lunch and learns’ to keep everyone up to date, but there’s nothing better than seeing and feeling materials first-hand.

Why do we visit shows?

It really does help to get out to these shows. We are currently working on a new hotel concept and Rachael found that she managed to source loads of ideas for materials and products which would fit the bill. It was great to speak to suppliers and see the products in the flesh, which is always better than just seeing an image on the Internet.

Sometimes we’re channelled into sticking with what we know as it’s safe, but when you speak with people in person it’s a lot easier than researching online. You also start to build a relationship by meeting face to face. New suppliers keep our list of resources refreshed instead of using the same companies all the time.