Web site Demonstrates Eastman Coatings Additive Solutions for Superior Aesthetics and Performance in Consumer Electronics
KINGSPORT, Tenn., April 10, 2006 – When it comes to coatings and enhancing the surfaces of consumer electronics you use every day, the beauty lies in Eastman Chemical Company's specialty additive solutions. To communicate its material expertise to designers and brand owners seeking dazzling, durable finishes for laptops, cell phones, portable music players and other electronic enclosures, Eastman has added a unique section (www.EastmanElectronics.com) within its award-winning Web site for designers and brand owners – www.EastmanInnovationLab.com – visualizing the performance benefits of its specialty additives for the coatings market.
Through the Eastman Innovation Lab, Eastman is able to communicate complex technical information in a way that is easily understood by a variety of audiences. Using animation and digital media techniques, the Web site graphically illustrates how Eastman specialty additives for coatings can both protect and enhance the appearance of electronics products.
"This is another way of transferring our technology to designers looking for material solutions that offer both aesthetics and superior performance," said Dirk DiSantis, Eastman's global market development manager for electronics and durables. "Materials and design have a better chance of advancing each other if there's a common language. Visualization is that language. And we're demonstrating the attributes of these additives by vividly illustrating the difference they make in coatings."
The enhancements made to the Eastman Innovation Lab Web site add customer value by inspiring designers to develop new products and services while improving existing products and opening new market categories. Describing Eastman cellulose esters as "the broad-spectrum antibiotic to paint problems," the Web site visualizes the benefits ranging from "enhancing rheology" to "faster dry-to-touch" to "improving pigment dispersion" to "enhancing metallic appearance."
Eastman adhesion promoters firmly bond coatings to the materials they protect and ensure adhesion to previously difficult-to-stick-to surfaces. The benefits of "increasing protection," "enhancing surface finish robustness" and "enabling adherence of the final coat" are illustrated with real life incidents such as coffee spilling onto a laptop. Each section also features a product overview and highlights key attributes of the enabling Eastman product solutions.
"The consumer electronics industry is highly competitive, and designers are always looking for that extra edge the informed use of materials can provide," said DiSantis. "Using animation and virtual representation to tell our story helps bridge the knowledge gap that has existed between the material and design worlds." Eastman launched the Eastman Innovation Lab Web site in March 2004 to better connect with designers and brand managers, working with The Brewery, a design consultancy based in London, England, to develop a simple, relevant story for each material. The Web site earned a gold award for digital media and interfaces in the 2005 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) competition co-sponsored by BusinessWeek Magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). The IDEA recognizes excellence in design innovation, user benefit, client/business benefit, ecological responsibility and aesthetic appeal.
As an interactive online resource for designers and brand owners, the Eastman Innovation Lab's reach is not limited to the coatings market. In fact, the specialty additives area represents only one of several new features added to the Web site. A section highlighting the capabilities of Eastman copolyester resins for custom containers provides several concepts for packaging designers to consider. Also featured are a story and interview with Giancarlo Venelli, the designer and manufacturer of the 12,000 crystal-clear stadium seats in the Palasport Olimpico, an arena which featured the XX Winter Olympic ice hockey games in Torino, Italy, this past February. The seats are made from Eastman's DuraStar copolyester, making the arena the world's first sports venue with all-transparent seating.