A color frenzy in Milan
The Corona pandemic isn’t over yet, but after two years of home office and lethargy, many events are coming back to life. The organizers and participants of the Milan Design Week from June 6 to 12 were also able to breathe a sigh of relief – the Fuori Salone Milan became a genuine frenzy of color and was bursting with creative ideas. At the heart of the creations are not only aesthetics and functionality, but also a growing awareness of sustainability and a circular design.
“The Salone will change design and designers” – pride in her city resonates in these words of a Milanese woman, as well as enthusiasm for this format that thrives on open dialogue, the meaningfulness of encounters, and many art objects with playful aspects. After the phase of pandemic-related abstinence, the time for special design has now come. The suddenly available resource of time and the associated period of rest has imparted a whole new creativity and energy. Whether vibrant colors, new productions, or the results of creative home bases were presented, Milan remains the Mecca of designers, the perfect place for those who design.
The same applies to digitality, which is increasingly influencing design. Public abstinence during the pandemic became an opportunity to break down boundaries with other art forms, for example in the use of displays controlled by gestures and light, or in new forms of interactive dance. Many productions focused on people and aimed to inspire them – a consistent continuation of the concept of “customer centricity”.
It was a very special experience for the Covestro team, which was represented at this hotspot for designers for the first time and exchanged ideas with visitors at eye level. Creating emotions with colors, materials, and versatile surface design options (CMF, color material, finish) is part of the added value Covestro offers customers with its plastics. Designers play a special role here, because they act as translators by delighting and inspiring and making products tangible and experienceable. Covestro offers a series of aesthetics toolkits for this purpose, explaining the visual and tactile properties of its polycarbonates.
These plastics in particular enable a frenzy of colors and senses, because there are virtually no limits to their color, haptic, and surface design. Designers are an important target group here – not only because they are part of the client’s purchasing team, but also because they are enthusiastic, inspiring influencers for our portfolio and perceive design thinking as the basis of the design process. This approach is completely focused on people and users.
In Milan, another important driver for future design developments caught the interest of the participants: the orientation of industry and society towards the circular economy. The focus is not on the goal of “somehow” designing, but on consciously bringing about change. Covestro offers various material solutions to support designers in such developments and projects. They are virtually tools for circular design – besides meeting functional and aesthetic requirements. These include alternative plant-based raw materials, in some cases also mass-balanced components, as well as innovative recycling technologies that are being developed together with partners along the value chains.
