David Hockney and Kronospan UK have something in common: they’ve both realised the creative possibilities of tablet computers.
Hockney first downloaded a painting and drawing app on his iPhone. He said he wanted to paint in bed and oils and watercolours made a mess of the duvet.
After getting to grips with the software, he decided he needed a broader canvas, so moved up to an iPad. The result is an acclaimed globetrotting exhibition, ‘Me Paint on iPad’, demonstrating what can be achieved combining art, design and modern technology. The works range from oils and pastels, to charcoals and pen and ink drawings. They can’t be distinguished from the real thing, but for one difference. The tens of thousands of people visiting the exhibition can step up to a picture, click the rewind key on the iPad and effectively watch the artist painting it.
The only thing Hockney initially couldn’t figure was adding a commercial aspect to his creative exploitation of the tablet. Unable to work out how to sell his iArt, he just emailed it to friends. That’s where Kronospan is a step ahead. The company believes it’s hit on a way to take the tablet into their creative process, and make it pay, both for itself and its customers.
But starting with the international panel giant’s creative angle. Each year for the last three it’s held an event at its huge Chirk production site called the Forum. Here, in the ‘Centre for Design Excellence’, a whitewashed farmhouse that Kronospan left standing when it built the factory, manufacturer and distributor customers are invited to view and comment on new surface design ranges. This year was slightly different. Instead of being shown just pictures, videos and displays of the latest products, Forum guests were first confronted with a stack of iPads and invited to take one, much to the puzzlement of many.
All remained a mystery for a while, as proceedings began with Italian designer Daniele Merla, head of décor at Kronospan’s foil supplier Impress, telling the audience about the inspiration for the products they were about to see – the latest evolutions in its ‘Fresh’ range of colour and grain effects. It wasn’t, he said, just about combining colour, texture and finish, but also studying how the combination tapped into consumers’ emotions, needs and aspirations and how these develop through time and experience, from childhood, to maturity.
"We don’t talk about what you do in a kitchen, for example, it’s about how you want to feel in the kitchen, and how our designs and products can respond to, create and enhance that feeling," he said.
Once its initial design process is complete, Kronospan aims to get its direct customers’ reactions to new concepts and add those into the final range-building process, bringing their market knowledge and expertise into the equation. This is where the iPads come in.
Augmented reality
All Forum visitors were invited to take their tablets and point the inbuilt camera at four posters illustrating the key trend concepts informing the Fresh range: Undone, Iridescent, Forager and Purist. A quick response (QR) code embedded in each picture then triggered Kronospan’s specially developed "augmented reality" software on the iPad to create a room set featuring a combination of latest Fresh concepts. The users could switch the various colour and grain effects until they achieved what they felt was the best mix and were then invited to press a ‘vote’ button, which recorded their preference.
"It’s taken us around three months from concept to reality to develop the software," said Kronospan UK product development and marketing manager Paul Duddle. "I was inspired by seeing something similar in Italy, where a designer was using augmented reality to show ‘rooms of the future’."
Using the iPads, he added, had gone down well with Forum guests. "It helped them interact and explore the new range in the context of a room environment," he said.
But most importantly, the voting data would give Kronospan critical information for finetuning the Fresh range prior to launch this spring and provide "vital insight into how the market will receive these décor trends".
"Forum visitors’ on-the-ground expertise will help finalise which new décors will feature and give the collection an important commercial edge," said Mr Duddle.
But the use of Kronospan’s new invention won’t end there. Sales staff have all been equipped with iPads too and will take them on the road to give interactive demonstrations to customers and help them make their selections.
"It will provide a very valuable tool, both for them and for the customer," said Mr Duddle.
It’s still early days, but Kronospan is additionally looking at the concept of an app to enable customers, and also designers and other specifiers, to use the augmented reality software on a computer or smartphone to create their own product blends.
Ultimately, the new design system might be taken up elsewhere in the international Kronospan group too.
"Each part of the Group operates autonomously to an extent, but we also share ideas and this has triggered interest," said Mr Duddle. "In fact we’ve had people from Kronospan Bulgaria over to look at it already."
Talking at the Forum, Kronospan UK chief executive Ludwig Scheiblreiter also predicted that software, IT and online systems generally would soon find other new applications, and further impact on panel products and the wider timber sector in the future.
"They’ve shaped manufacturing and business administration, and now they’re shaping how we sell and design, and influencing virtually every other aspect of our activities," he said. "We must constantly keep up with latest developments, or others will and take advantage."
