Coatings World - November 2012

The competition is being conducted by the Paint Quality Institute (PQI), an informational entity whose mission is to educate the public about quality paints and coatings.

The finalists are a diverse lot, including communities both large and small, located on the coasts and in the heartland, some with long histories and others relatively new. But all have one thing in common: They have beautified themselves with exterior paint.

“For purposes of our competition, a ‘prettiest painted place’ is a very special town or neighborhood with exceptional community-wide ‘curb appeal’ due to visually appealing or very creative use of exterior paint color,” explained Debbie Zimmer, paint and color expert for the Paint Quality Institute.

“Curb appeal is often defined by beautiful color schemes on homes or buildings, and that’s typically the case, but exquisite outdoor murals and creative use of paint color on statues, signage, traffic signals, water towers and even streets and sidewalks have elevated the appearance of many of today’s prettiest communities, including some of our finalists” she said.

PQI began its search for the “prettiest painted places” by contacting state departments of tourism, convention and visitors’ bureaus, chambers of commerce, historical societies and Main Street programs in all 50 states. Eventually, nearly 200 towns and neighborhoods were nominated in the competition.

Judges with expertise in color selection, exterior painting and home improvement then reviewed the entries and narrowed down the field to the 60 finalists. Later this month, after further evaluation and another round of judging, two of the 10 finalists in each of the six regions will be named the 12 prettiest

painted places in America.

This is the third time the Paint Quality Institute has conducted a search for the prettiest painted places in America. It held the first competition in the 1990s, and another in 2000.

According to Zimmer, the purpose of the competition is to give recognition to places that use paint to express pride in their communities, and highlight how an attractive exterior paint treatment can enhance the curb appeal of virtually any

“The purpose of the Paint Quality
Institute’s (PQI) ‘Prettiest Painted
Places’ competition is to given
recognition to places that use
paint to express pride in their
communities and highlight how an
attractive exterior paint treatment
can enhance the curb appeal of
virtually any home, building or ex-
terior structure.”

home, building or exterior structure.

Additional information on the competition is available at http://blog.paintqual-ity.com/exterior-painting/prettiest-painted-p laces-finalists/.

Hapag-Lloyd selects
International Paint

Hapag-Lloyd has again chosen coatings from International Paint, this time for the ‘Hamburg Express.’ the first of a new class of ten container ship newbuildings from Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea.

At 13,200 TEU the ‘Hamburg Ex-
press’ is Hapag-Lloyd’s largest ship to
date. All ten units in the ‘Hamburg Ex-
press’ class are designed to support
Hapag-Lloyd’s commitment to effi-
ciency and sustainability by setting the
very highest performance and environ-
mental standards, reducing fuel con-
sumption and emissions thanks to
innovative on-board technology, the
company reported.

Kelly-Moore California stores
to serve as collection points
California PaintCare Program

In keeping with its commitment to reducing waste, Kelly-Moore Paint Company, Inc. has announced that its California stores will serve as collection points for old and unwanted paints, regardless of brand.