KINGSPORT, Tenn., Oct. 28, 2004 – What does a company that makes small plastic pellets do when designers ask for practical working samples of its materials? Eastman Chemical Company is now sending them “pebbles” instead of pellets. The larger, palm-of-your-hand sized pebbles are the first phase of Eastman’s Material Difference sample program for the design community and customers.
“Providing designers with material samples is a challenge we’ve faced for some time since sending them a bag of tiny loose pellets would simply not meet their needs,” said Gaylon White, design programs manager at Eastman Chemical Company. “In the past, when a designer was considering one of our materials and requested samples, we would often go shopping to buy products made with our materials.”
No longer.
Designers wanting samples of Eastman’s cellulosic plastic, the first chosen for the sampling program, can now get a multicolored set of pebbles that demonstrates the material’s unique tactile qualities. Each pebble is made of two fitted halves, allowing a designer to mix the colors or share the sample with a client. The pebble samples demonstrate the high clarity and a rich set of colors – glacier, spring, aqua, sepia and cobalt – that are possible with cellulosics, a material developed by Eastman in the 1930s.
“We plan that the Material Difference sampling program will eventually include all of our key plastics products,” said White. “The shape of each sample set in the future will be distinctive to each group of materials.”
Information on this first phase of Eastman’s Material Difference sampling program, as well as inspiration for designers is available on Eastman’s Innovation Lab at www.EastmanInnovationLab.com.