design:retail - November/December 2017 - 20

A D V E R T O R I A L

with

John Crews

Design Manager Lifestyle Studio, Shaw Contract

haw Contract recently announced a new Dye
Injection manufacturing innovation called
Canvas-a unique tool that allows designers
to bring anything from a custom pattern, a sketch or
even artwork to the floor with perfect precision. We
sat down with John Crews, design manager, lifestyle at
Shaw Contract to hear more about what the technology will bring designers and which trends influenced
Canvas' development.
How has Canvas technology changed the way you're
able to approach product development?
Canvas provides us with a fresh beginning for our
in-house designers and clients. From a pattern and
artwork perspective, we can do anything now. Using
Canvas' Dye Injection technology and specialized software tools, our in-house design consultants can render
any visual onto carpet. Instead of hoping interpretations of a design turn out to be "real" enough, Canvas
allows us to design patterns, graphics and artwork in
any color in a crisp, photorealistic way.
Textile and furniture manufacturers have been
able to do what Canvas achieves for years, and we're
excited to offer this in commercial flooring. Now we
can take the raw sincerity and craftsmanship of our
clients' sketches or artwork and bring it to the floor in
a graphically precise depiction and at a scale that has
never been possible before.
What current trends are you keeping an eye on?
Coming retail trends are dictated by guest satisfaction. With Canvas, we're now able to create dynamic,
branded experiences within each individual area of
retail stores. Retail flooring also indicates different
segments of the space with high-contrast rugs over our
hard surface flooring.
We're seeing a shift from streamlined silhouettes
in flooring, furniture and art to bigger, bolder, more
photorealistic designs across all sectors, and Canvas
accomplishes that. Part of this trend comes from a
need to localize and brand flooring as part of a retail
environment's aesthetic. Canvas can create patterns

and prints in colors that exactly match a store's overall design aesthetic or brand palette.
What's one thing people probably don't know about
your company?
We are the only major carpet manufacturer operating in the commercial environment that offers
Canvas technology.
How did you refine the design process for Canvas?
In a world where we are increasingly surrounded by
visual digital stimulus, the articulation of digitally
manipulated media in physical objects changes the
possibilities for experiencing new relationships to
forms, prints, textures, colors and other graphic elements, and redefines a new cultural vocabulary by
manipulating and blending these forms of expression.
We began with extensive market research in which
we examined 25 different carpet patterns. We analyzed
them for blending, photorealism, color and linear detail to decide on our priorities for Canvas technology.
As we developed Canvas further, we pursued a
process that was curated, artistic and captured the
thought process of our designers without having to
sacrifice detail. We chose the succulents (above) for
their interesting textures and colors, created an image
and projected that image onto flooring without distorting or losing detail in the linework.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of design:retail - November/December 2017