|
PLASTICS, FROM PLAIN,
TO BEAUTIFUL AND FUNCTIONAL, WORLDWIDE, RAPRA, BERLIN 2005
The Art of Plastics Design
Conference 18th -19th October 2005, Berlin, Germany
Design and plastics
In all industries, in the very industrialized world, as in the
developing world, design is an indispensable prerequisite. It is
impossible to imagine a world without design, without packaging,
without visual identity, a colorless, shapeless, odorless, flavorless
world. Design is life itself, better than life itself because it
introduces and enhances creativity, the added value of human imagination
and art.
In times when such concepts as low cost, hard discount, are much
valorized, it is somewhat reassuring that the concept of design,
meaning beauty, harmony, clever functionality, is part of strategy
and development in the plastics as well in other industries. Design
is also one last stronghold for established brands, facing the impact
of nameless products, coming from all over the world, that retail
distributors market under their own brand names. In a world increasingly
standard and regulated, design is to stay a sign of creativity,
innovation, the best that imagination may give to industrial products...
Design has a strong meaning for plastics, as it is part not only
of the finished products, but also ever researched and built-in
in the materials themselves, in their processes, associating, and
making into the finished products to which design brings innovations
and developments, helping further inroads of plastics into all other
materials. Plastics are becoming the universal material under our
very eyes.
The relatively short history of plastics, less than a century,
sixty years as a mass industry, is ever expanding into diversity,
new materials, new associations of materials, new looks, new functions,
new applications.
For the over 200 million tons of plastics now used in the world,
the road has been long. Yet, it went in the short span
of these sixty years, from the first black and white, or colorless,
flimsy, substitution materials of questionable properties, to an
almost limitless universe of polymers, blends, with higher performance
properties, bright and sophisticated colors and finishes.
Most plastics, even some of the non visible applications, now require
some particular finishing. Imagination, creativity, and the search
for enhanced performances rule the design of old and new applications
and sustain the continuing development of plastics.
In fact, increasingly, there hardly is any application of plastics
that is not, more or less, designed for specific effects and functions.
The ever changing and ever expanding range of plastics materials
and applications rests on these old and new concepts of finishing,
away from the raw state of the materials.
And yet, there is an interesting, and disturbing, fact, the public
at large continues to think that plastics is one word, one material,
as the general public is completely unaware of plastics extraordinary
range.
Paper outline
Summary of plastics consumption and trends in 2005, world
Plastics applications not requiring any special effects or design,
just plain
Overview of more elaborated applications
A few examples of what plastics design brings to new developments
Plastics future to be boosted by creativity and design
back to the top of the page
|
|
