„And the winner is…“ – Laminat Edition 1

Parador has once more produced an excellent “best practice example” of the design success factor. On 16th March 2009, Laminate Edition 1, for which six top international designers and architects each designed two floor decors, won the sought-after “red dot award: product design 2009.”

The “red dot award” awarded by the North Rhine Westphalia Design Centre in Essen since 1992, enjoys worldwide acclaim as an acknowledged design prize. Among the 3,231 innovations submitted in the “Product Design” category by about 1,400 companies from 49 countries, Parador’s Laminate Edition 1 designer collection convinced an internationally renowned panel of experts who met for a whole week with the promoter in Essen to judge the products. Like all the products submitted, the Laminate Edition 1 collection, which is manufactured by digital printing and has 12 individual floor patterns, was subjected to a series of strict evaluation criteria that is con-stantly adapted to the latest knowledge of form, technical, manufacturing-specific, social, economic and ecological requirements. Is the product as a whole new or does it add a new, desirable quality to what already exists? This designer collection launched in international markets in January 2009 was able to convince the international jury on questions like this on the level of innovation and also on functionality, quality of form, the symbolic and emotional content and quality of self certification.

Parador assesses its successful participation as the winner of the “red dot design award” as an opportunity to expand its prominent position as a top performer in international competition and at the same time as recognition of its own innovation strategy that recombines design skills and new tech-nological developments again and again. Visitors to the “red dot museum” at the Zeche Zollverein site in Essen who are interested in design will in future also encounter exhibits of Laminate Edition 1 within the world’s biggest exhibition of contemporary design.

The next level - Laminate 2.0

Laminate Edition 1 from Parador gives the floor new status without having to place it in an alien spatial context. It may remain a floor and stand up to real life. Design requires form but the six designers, Ben van Berkel, Ora Ito, Karim Rashid, Matteo Thun, Jean-Marie Massaud and Konstantin Grcic, demonstrate that even a flat floor surface can represent a virtual reality. The designers’ twelve decors honour the material and the work as aesthetic values. So this collection crosses two boundaries: laminate, which was originally introduced as an artificial wood product and the architectural boundary of the floor. Parador created the basis for the technological realisation of the 12 individual floor designs with digital art print technology. This in-house developed digital printing process, for which the patent has been applied for, puts laminate flooring into the pole position in design thanks to freedom of pattern choice, great colour brilliance and colour intensity and the very high quality of resolution of up to 1440 x 1440 dpi, which permits surface results in art print quality and gives room for manoeuvre that was denied to the traditional analogue technology.

Outstanding design  - more than ever a crucial feature of differentiation

The theme of design is becoming increasingly important today for differen-tiation in international markets. With rising quality standards and increasing similarity of products in a context of a growing supply of products and ser-vices, the consumer requires more and more information and guidance. De-sign offers decision aids, guidance and opportunities for emotional identifi-cation at a consumer level and, as we know, helps the trade to find long-term sales opportunities. Incorporating design into the company as only a short-term distinguishing feature can at best offer only short-term success. Parador has for many years incorporated design skills and leadership in technological innovation as company guidelines in its philosophy and again and again lived with innovation. With its design-orientated flooring collec-tion in the sectors of laminate, parquet and solid wood, the company had already attracted attention from the international sector by 2005 and thereby secured for itself sales and image advantages that continue to benefit the brand to this day.

Having no-one better than you in flooring – Edition is “Luxury Floor-ing Concepts”

With “Luxury Flooring Concepts” Parador has set itself the goal of setting standards by which others are guided: refined, luxurious, responsible. Here the slogan is to have no-one better than you in flooring. Incorporated into the “Luxury Flooring Concepts” brand repositioning, Laminate Edition 1 to-gether with the other Edition collections in the laminate, parquet and solid wood flooring sectors represents the most exclusive way to bring floor de-sign to life and it shows how impressive it is when design takes on a new emotional form for completely new design opportunities through the vehicle of new technological innovation.

Coesfeld, 16th March 2009