New carpet collaboration influenced by man-made and natural formations
Milliken Carpet and SOM Collaborative have launched Way, a 36'' modular carpet collection with 3D designs that depart from traditional inspirations such as art and fashion toward man-made structures and geological formations.

The collection utilized Millitron, a new high-definition printing technology from Milliken that allowed SOM and Milliken designers to create fine gradations of color and layers of visual texture that simulate dimension. Milliken also reformulated colors to achieve palettes in six high-contrast color families, including blue-blacks, browns, greens, silver-blues, reds, and charcoals.

The three design families in the line include Riverbed, which captures the illusion of light on water; Urbanscape, influenced by cityscapes and aerial shots of highways and traffic; and Forcefield, inspired by images of bridges, airports, and city blocks. Each design family includes three patterns that increase in complexity and scale.

Using Pattern Builder software, developed by the collaborative, users can click and drag modular designs onto a grid and rotate them in any direction to compose their own graphic art.

According to Milliken, Way is 100 percent sustainable and can be renewed through the firm’s Earth Square process or recycled by other means. Milliken Carpet, LaGrange, Ga. www.millikencarpet.com   [ Reader Service May 2005 # 213 ]

Coordinating tile and carpet palette
Crossville has designed its new Color Blox porcelain stone tile collection to coordinate with Bentley Prince Street’s broadloom and carpet tile products. The smooth, unpolished surface of Color Blox is softened by shade variations from tile to tile, which imparts a handcrafted look while making it easier to match the tile with other finishes and furnishings. The collection features a palette of 20 hues.

“This collaboration will allow specifiers to easily create unique tile installations of multiple sizes and colors, or accent a basically solid tile floor with blocks of color—then tie it all together with a coordinating Bentley Prince Street carpet or carpet tile in a neighboring area,” says Jim Dougherty, V.P. of marketing and business development for Crossville.

The two companies’ marketing initiatives will include advertising and online marketing campaigns to inspire specifiers to coordinate their products in commercial and residential projects. Crossville, Crossville, Tenn. www.crossville.com [ Reader Service May 2005 # 214 ]

Comprehensive backings binder
As an aide to specifiers, The Mohawk Group has created the Architects Folder devoted to carpet backings, with cut samples and definitions of each. The 11 systems in the folder include UltraSet Modular Systems, the company’s first hard-back modular tile system. A thermo-stable structured backing of several composite materials, UltraSet is now being incorporated into all Mohawk Commercial and Bigelow Commercial carpet tiles. Another new addition is BioCel, a polyurethane backing that not only increases the carpet’s life, but also combines renewable and recycled resources. The technology teams Celceram, a highly refined mineral endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency, with BioBalance, a rapidly renewable resource from soybean oil. The backing systems utilizing this technology contain an average of 50 to 55 percent postindustrial content, 7 to 15 percent consumer content, and 7 to 10 percent renewable resource. The Mohawk Group, Kennesaw, Ga. www.themohawkgroup.com [ Reader Service May 2005 # 215 ]