Materials and Processes for Industrial Designers.
There’s always room for one more: Material Ocean is an Australian materials blog for designers and member of the design droplets network. They just started about a month ago (July 27). Heck, my first post was just on June 21…
Welcome, my Aussie friends and best of luck on the new blog.
I wish more material suppliers had web site this designer-friendly… Eastman is a leading manufacturer of copolyesters and cellulosics… What? You DO know what those are, don’t you?
Don’t worry, if you’re not really familiar with their materials, then this is the place to go. Eastman created their Innovation Lab as a place where designers can explore and learn about their materials and see how they’re being used (or could be used) in applications you might normally associate with polycarbonate or PBT. Take a look around… there’s a lot to see…
The Inspiration page shows a gallery of real-world applications for their products.
They feature a project they did with students from Savannah College of Art and Design a few years ago. They looked at medical packaging and devices currently using Eastman materials.
I also really like their Material Maps which allow you to compare two different properties (like heat resistance over toughness) to see how different materials compare. There’s a ton of good content here and definitely worth a visit.
The CREATIVE RESOURCE invites you to explore their extensive database of ‘sustainable’ materials at Rematerialise. The database itself represents the culmination of over a decades intensive research which has spanned the globe to pull together a diverse array of material information. The research project was initiated in 1994 by Jakki Dehn, a reader in Product and Furniture Design at Kingston University. Together with Mark Ballance and Peter Perstel, their vision is to compile and maintain a versatile collection of ‘Eco-Smart’ materials, which by their very nature provide a range of environmentally responsible alternatives to other resource hungry materials. By tapping into both post-consumer and post-industrial waste streams, scrap and refuse otherwise destined for landfill is recycled and reused which reduces waste and maybe more importantly saves natural resources.
Their search ‘streams’ are divided into four different paths: Type (glass, metal, plastic, etc.), Process (cast, extruded, injection molded, etc.), Character (bendy, colorful, opaque, etc.) and Application (decking, insulation, textiles, etc.). It’s a great database to browse…
NOTE: Make sure your browser allows pop-ups as the information and videos need that to be on to work (click the icons with each listing).
