a color will look like in their
homes, and 39 percent discuss
color schemes with friends and
family before making a purchase. The new features in the Visualizer
build on these trends.
“We are constantly looking to under-
stand consumer behavior and any emerg-
ing trends, innovations and technologies
that will enable us stay one step ahead,”
added Ruud Joosten, AkzoNobel’s
Executive Committee member respon-
sible for Decorative Paints. “This helps us
deliver products and colors that people
want. The Visualizer tool gives consumers
confidence to try new colors, quickly see
the potential end result and share it with
friends to get their views.”
Now available for iOS and soon to be
released on Android, the new version of
the Visualizer will be rolled out in more
than 40 markets this year, starting with
the Netherlands, Turkey, France, India,
Indonesia, Argentina and Russia. In se-
lected markets, it will include additional
features to help consumers during their
purchasing process, such as the option to
buy testers directly through the app.
CIL Paint Collaborates with
Designer Yanic Simard to
Unveil New Color Center
CIL paint announced the launch of the
CIL shipping container transformation
tour to celebrate the introduction of the
new CIL paint color center. Celebrity designer Yanic Simard of Toronto Interior
Design Group transformed a 20-feet-by-
20-feet eye-catching shipping container,
which showcases creativity through color,
design and unique, achievable do-it-yourself (DIY) projects.
The shipping container is a mobile gallery travelling to Yonge & Dundas Square
and the Distillery District in Toronto,
and to Philips Square and Old Port in
Montreal. It takes everyday objects and
makes them extraordinary using the new
CIL paint color palettes as inspiration,
encouraging consumers to feel confident
that if they dream it, they can do it.
“I got to have all the fun in the
world designing the CIL shipping con-
tainer,” said Yanic Simard, Toronto
Interior Design Group. “The project
definitely forced out-of-the box, cre-
ative thinking and proved that paint is
more than just color on a wall – it’s
an expression of personality and indi-
viduality, and there are so many ways
to bring it to life. The new CIL color
center not only inspires consumers but
shows them how easy it is to make
their DIY dreams a reality.”
The transformed shipping container
is a “pop-up” inspiration hub showcas-
ing four vignettes that represent common
areas in the home and feature new CIL
paint colors used on the walls. It also is
enhanced through interesting, achievable
DIY projects that make the space truly
unique. Together, the combination of the
vignettes and DIYs housed in the ship-
ping container highlights the transfor-
mative power of paint in a small space,
and features the new CIL paint tools of-
fered to customers in stores, including
oversized paint chips, lifestyle guides and
other take-home tools designed to make
color selection easier.
“The new CIL paint color center was
developed in collaboration with our global color marketing team using proprietary trends research, and it was designed
to make finding the perfect color easy,”
Racecar Features First-ever Composite Rear Suspension with PPG Fiber Glass
PPG announced that Polystrand Inc., a Denver-based manufacturer of thermoplastic composite materials, used TUFROV
4510 and TUFROV 4588 fiber glass roving products by PPG to
build a racecar featuring the world’s first thermoplastic composite rear suspension.
The Grand Touring Lite (GT-Lite) racecar was designed by
Jonathan Spiegel, senior engineer, Polystrand, who drove the
car in a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) event in Houston.
He said the vehicle was built to demonstrate that continuous-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin is an excellent material for
automotive suspension and structural components.
“There are light-truck and passenger-car suspensions
equipped with composite springs, but they have always been
made with thermoset resins,” Spiegel explained. “We believe
our car is the first in the world to employ a thermoplastic resin,
which offers distinct advantages over thermoset resin, such as
faster production cycle times, higher impact resistance, easier
recyclability and no VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions
during processing.”
Spiegel said he specified TUFROV 4510 continuous-strand
fiber glass roving as reinforcement for suspension components
because its excellent tensile strength, flexural modulus and siz-
ing compatibility provide superior mechanical properties and
fatigue performance compared to other fiber glass products on
the market.
TUFROV 4588 long-fiber thermoplastic (LFT) reinforcement
roving was laminated into hybrid interior sandwich panels, which
made the car lighter and safer to drive, and it was used to reinforce the front air splitter, which acts as an aerodynamic aid
under the nose of the car.
