Covestro releases new design trend reports on Color, Material and Finish

CMF (Color, Material, Finish) is playing an increasingly important role in the design and aesthetics of industrial products. As a pioneer in delivering innovative solutions to incorporate CMF into product design, materials company Covestro released the CMF Design Trend Reports 2022-2023 at an online event today in Shanghai and during the Milan Design Week. At these occasions, Covestro highlighted the themes of “Awakening,” “Coexistence” and “Empowerment” to CMF trends and showcased its industry-leading CMF Aesthetic Toolkits to customers and partners as well as to visitors of the Milan Design Week. More events and presentations like these will be held in near future.

Dr. Christopher Stillings, Head of Covestro Global Color & Design CMF in Engineering Plastics segment, said, “With the ambition to bring together materials functionality and aesthetics, we’ve partnered with top designers and CMF experts to present the new CMF trend reports. Covestro intends to be more than just a material manufacturer and become an inspirational partner of choice for designers and CMF experts when it comes to the realization of their concepts or strategies into our materials. We are able to add value by enabling functional, aesthetic, and circular design elements.”

Exploring global trends from a Chinese perspective

Covestro, in collaboration with Tongji University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Goodmatter studio, sourced research with a Chinese perspective for the 2022-2023 CMF Design Trend Reports. The impact of globalization is prevalent in industrial design, particularly reflected in the convergence of consumer lifestyles and commercial activities worldwide. Despite the universal design themes, diverse cultural expressions are still needed to resonate with local consumer groups. Covestro aims to smartly identify global trends of industrial design while capturing culture relevance. In the 2022-2023 reports, Covestro hopes to inspire global customers with design with Chinese flavors as the country is on track to transform from “Made in China” to “Designed in China.” Wenqing Yang, professor at Shanghai International College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University, noted, “By exploring global trends from a Chinese perspective, Covestro’s innovative aesthetic design has brought new color trends to life for the industry in a new era.”

By collecting customer insights and holding expert seminars, Covestro and its partners developed trend stories for the automotive, electronics, electrical and healthcare industries, driving more opportunities in CMF industry-wide. “I am honored to be involved in this color research project. Despite all the challenges, Covestro has always remained true to its innovation principles. I hope this report will lead industry customers to new successes,” said John Fu, associate professor and head of the Design Trend Institute, School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

CMF Aesthetic Toolkits inspire designers in unique ways

For designers, Covestro’s polycarbonate CMF Aesthetic Toolkits are key to understanding the potential of this high-performance plastic and other materials such as TPU and composites. With different shapes, textures and surfaces, the design possibilities of the material are ideally showcased. This allows designers to discover more performance possibilities of polycarbonates and gain inspiration for design. Covestro’s CMF Aesthetic Toolkits were awarded the German Design Award 2022 in the category “Excellent Product Design – Material and Surfaces,” one of the most prestigious design awards in the industry.

Covestro believes that new trends bring challenges and require new CMF solutions to address them. The company’s material solutions and CMF Aesthetic Toolkits empower designers to contribute to aesthetics, functionality and sustainability, creating added value for their customers. Through its CMF activities, Covestro aims to inspire designers to discover more application opportunities for polycarbonate in the consumer market.

About Covestro:

Covestro is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-quality polymer materials and their components. With its innovative products, processes and methods, the company helps enhance sustainability and the quality of life in many areas. Covestro supplies customers around the world in key industries such as mobility, building and living, as well as the electrical and electronics sector. In addition, polymers from Covestro are used in sectors such as sports and leisure, cosmetics and health, as well as in the chemical industry itself.

The company is committed to becoming fully circular and aims to become climate neutral by 2035 (scope 1 and 2). Covestro generated sales of around EUR 15.9 billion in fiscal 2021. At the end of 2021, the company had 50 production sites worldwide and employed approximately 17,900 people (calculated as full-time equivalents).

Forward-looking statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Covestro AG. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Covestro’s public reports which are available at www.covestro.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.