Tricycle NeoCon 2007 Pics

We're finally recovering from our Chicago designfest… here are a few shots of our case study booth along with some candids from the evenings. If you happened to visit us during the show you'll soon receive one of the rulers from the "transparency wall" shown in the fourth photo down. Thanks to our friends at Widgets & Stone for collaborating on the space. It was fun working with you, Joseph (note: he's the available guy in the acid green T at the bottom of this post)! And to our interns who cut all of those circles out of the "faux-Droog" wallpaper. To see more interesting NeoCon shizizzle head over to our friends' blog at Grant Design Collaborative.

More Winnings

A few more design awards have been announced… Reverb continues to turn heads, winning handclaps from the AIGA SEED awards, PRINT Regional Design Annual and AIGA 365/28. The Opus Carpets (now Nood) logo also was selected for AIGA 365/28. Both of these projects will be included in the AIGA Design Archives and housed in the Denver Art Museum later this year.

Tricycle-Enabled Design Tools Earn NeoCon Gold, Silver and Innovation Awards and Call for Creation of New Judging Category

At this year's NeoCon, design tools enabled by Tricycle® took home Gold, Silver and Innovation awards, and were deemed so innovative that a new award category of "Design Tools" was created during the judging.

Tricycle's customers who won the award were Tandus, which won Gold in the newly created Design Tools category, Karastan Contract, which won Design Tools Silver, and Lees, which won the Innovation award in the category.

Tricycle's mission has always been to erase unnecessary waste in the design process, while serving the design process itself. We see sustainability and design as wholly integrated, even inseparable. As we develop tools that reduce costs, wait time and the use of natural resources, every step in the development of these tools - from concept to launch - is based upon the way that designers work.

The Tandus, Karastan, Durkan and Lees programs are all on display in Tricycle's NeoCon booth this year, along with other innovative programs from great brands. We could not be more pleased that the NeoCon judges created the new category of Design Tools, because we believe that there is much more work to be done, by manufacturers and service companies all across the industry who are rethinking what 'best practice' truly means.

The Gold was awarded to Tandus' Inunison Virtual Sample Folders, which were conceived in partnership with Tricycle. Using high resolution images of carpet to present running line patterns in a revolutionary evolution of the sample book, the books minimize the need for carpet samples that end up in landfill, while enhancing the sampling experience for designers. The books present carpet with feeler samples as well as tear-off pads of carpet images printed on paper, encouraging designers to continue their common practices of tearing swatches out of a sample book for inspiration boards, schematic design and initial client presentations. While other carpet manufacturers discourage this practice, because it requires them to replace samples and books, this rethinking of the sample book acknowledges - and encourages - an important part of of a designer's creative process.

The Silver was awarded for Karastan's LE 12 and Folio 54 Interactive Design, designed and developed by Tricycle. LE 12 is a new rapid prototyping program which features an industry first - believable woven carpet simulation. The month-long lead times for custom woven products are cut to seconds, letting designers view custom colored woven designs immediately. Because it is integrated with a Tryk™ print program, recyclable paper print samples can be delivered within 24 hours for the early rounds of a designers' pattern and color exploration, before requesting a physical sample. LE 12 currently features Karaloc and Wilton products, with Axminster to follow this autumn.

The Interactive Design of Folio 54, also built by Tricycle, is an Ian-Schrager inspired sampling program from Durkan Commercial, which allows any designer with an internet connection to recolor their favorite patterns, view them in built environments, and order Tryk prints that save time and waste. The site was designed in collaboration with Armastus Studios.

The Innovation award was given to Lees Carpets, for their Accelerated Design System, developed in partnership with Tricycle. The system provides designers with large scale, highly realistic digital prints of their designs before ordering samples, using technology to reduce the turnaround time and environmental impact of the design process.

The irony and the ecstacy

How Ample Sample's winning design turned trash to treasure, back to trash, and back to treasure again.

In March, we launched a design competition called Ample Sample along with do-gooders from Bentley Prince Street and Floor Focus magazine. The brief? To refuse to see carpet samples as refuse, instead viewing them as raw materials for a new interiors product.

After many great entries and some debate among the judges, ten finalists were selected and a Judge's Choice a winner was announced - Rugburm, a remarkably beautiful and functional chair designed out of 42 samples, by a team at RSA Los Angeles. The RSA team generously offered to build their design and ship it to us at NeoCon. The box was delivered to the exhibit space and after opening it to be certain that all was in order, we stacked the posters of other finalists alongside it.

Then, tragedy struck. Apparently a member of the Merchandise Mart's housekeeping staff opened the box, saw that it was full of carpet samples, and decided that should be carted away as trash. So when we returned to the exhibit space to set everything up, there were posters but no Rugburm. And by the time that the Mart staff solved the mystery (thank you Michael Ancheta, who saved the day), Rugburm was already at the dump. Yes, you heard correctly - this amazing rethinking and reuse of project tools, to make something beautiful, was at the dump. Despite the designers' glorious redemption of samples, someone had not been able to see it for the beautiful object that it had become.

There is a happy ending - the staff was able to retrieve it from the dump, only slightly worse for wear, and after some quick emailing with the RSA designers (thank you James Wong, who also saved the day), it was set up in time for day one of NeoCon and the People's Choice judging awards.

But it's another reminder of how far there is to go in changing the way that people re-think.

Pictures will be posted tonight, or go to the Ample Sample website to see the CADs + download plans to build all of the finalists' entries.

Introducing Tryk™ at NeoCon

An expansion of what we started with SIM, Tryk™ is a best-in-class image designed to enhance the design, product development, merchandising and sampling of interiors surfaces. A giant step beyond any single surface or technology, Tryk erases waste in every sector, from floorcovering to wallcovering to fabric. Visit us on the 8th floor, #4110, to learn how designers have used Tricycle's services to make a faster and more sustainable spec and to hear how we're moving forward.

Or if you're just interested in interesting design, stop by to see this year's exhibit space. We've won the International Interior Design Association's Creative Excellence award for our booth for the last three years. We have a simple philosophy for exhibit design: reuse items from past exhibits or purchase new items to furnish the office after the show. This year we mined from our storage room, picked up a few new pieces and used lots of trash:

• cardboard from Ikea packaging (we got some new desks)
  
• wood and MDF from NeoCon 2003
• oil quart from NeoCon 2005
• bamboo plywood furniture is new for our conference room
• Spork floor (37% recycled content) will be our conference room rug
• rulers will be shipped to visitors of the space or donated to local schools
• all paper is destined for the recycle bin
• shelves will go in our hallway
• pendant lamps go in the exec suite (lucky me!)
  
• LED mirror… we're not sure yet… it's going to be a fight.
  

Hope to see you there! We'll do our best to post photos while we're at the show.

Ample Sample Finalists Announced

Ten finalists have been selected for the 2007 Ample Sample Design Contest. Shown here is Mag "Daddy" Caddy by David Shor from FutureBrand. View the rest of the finalists here. A winning design from amongst the top ten will be announced June 11 at NeoCon. If you're at the show, be sure to visit the finalists gallery on the 8th floor of the Mart. (And come by to see us at booth 4110.)

Reverb is Back…

After six months out of print, Reverb has returned as a dematerialized e-book. Download the reincarnated version here for a 5 spot.

Toward better buying choices

In today's landscape of plenty, we've got 15 kinds of lemonade and 155 brands of toothpaste to choose from - all with the same basic ingredients, all priced within a few cents of each other. In such a sitz im leben, every act of consumption is an expression of value.

Now that brands have picked up on the fact that shoppers are using their dollars in favor of values (not just value), they are facing some of the questions that have been asked by socially conscious investors for years. And there's a lot that we can learn from this group's stumbles and successes. Curiously, when faced with difficult choices (e.g. Nike is a good investment financially, and were recycling their shoes and leading waste reduction initiatives, but were also employing 10 year olds for 20 cents a day), a significant number of socially attuned investors looked to the consumers to decide what matters.

Here is a very interesting blog post on "issue based filters for investing," by a "greenie-capitalist" company that is struggling with how to change the world and be profitable. I'm not 100% on the same page with its writer, but there's some rich content here. And even more richly rewarding, it's great to read the transparent struggles of other companies that see sustainability as a starting point, rather than a ceiling.

Socially responsible investors, young companies that are pursuing profitability that's economic, environmental and social, and consumers who are increasingly aware of the need to make responsible choices with their buying power... we've got a lot that we can learn from each other.

As the writer say, there's no "silver bullet that solves all of our problems." And maybe this realization is the first step in a good direction. Maybe the days of one-stop shopping - for big idea solutions or for grocery runs - SHOULD be over. Because as it turns out, in many choices one size does not fit all.