Atkins project wins ACASPA award

January 1, 1970  |  News

Chris Atkins minimizes his company’s scope to maximize quality. By Sigrid Tornquist Chris Atkins doesn’t shy away from taking on large, complex projects—like a project his company completed for an installation at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Ariz. “The degree of diffi…
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Making boating easy

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Derek Robinson John Anderson, CEO of Riviera Yachts, Australia’s largest luxury boat-builder, warns that the marine industry is in a period of rapid change and businesses need to constantly reinvent themselves. “In our market—luxury boats between 40 and 70 feet—we are movi…
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Pairing the best substrate with the best ink

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Sigrid Tornquist Pairing the best substrate with the best ink is the pursuit of any savvy awning manufacturer and printer who plays a part in applying graphic applications to awnings. And though there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, there are some new developments worth considering, and so…
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Color standards

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Janice Kleinschmidt Eight color-focused companies—including Adobe, Agfa, Apple, Kodak and Microsoft—joined forces in 1993 to develop and promote the standardization of identifying color across platforms. The International Color Consortium, based in Reston, Va., is already on version f…
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What green means for specialty fabrics customers

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Jamie Swedberg Environmentally friendly products aren’t flying off the shelves as quickly as they used to, what with customers’ newfound price sensitivity. But certain types of buyers will always want the greenest option. “This is just my opinion, but I don’t think sustain…
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Fabric applications must meet codes

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Janice Kleinschmidt At one time, fabric—when it came to structures, anyway—amounted to little more than window dressing. With the advent of stronger, more durable textiles and advanced chemistry and manufacturing processes, fabric became a building material—one whose fluidity ap…
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Needed: Engineers with fabric expertise

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Janice Kleinschmidt Locating engineers with expertise in fabric structures can be challenging. “You rarely find people who know fabric,” says Martin Brown of FabriTec Structures. “You normally pick up bright engineers that want to work hard and train them.” For companies l…
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Trends in the fabric graphics market

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Jeff Rasmussen In July 2009, IFAI conducted a fabric graphics climate survey of U.S. and Canadian fabric graphics suppliers and end product manufacturers. Survey results show a more competitive environment in 2009 caused by reduced expenditures and budgets in the corporate market, a continued slo…
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Specialty Fabrics Review interviews Pete McKernan, president and CEO of Herculite Products Inc.

January 1, 1970  |  News

Interview by Sigrid Tornquist What is your industry prediction? The first lesson I learned about predicting the future is that you can’t. But we can observe trends and try to anticipate how those trends might create opportunities and challenges. What is your business philosophy? Help customers…
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Trade associations are vehicles for mutually beneficial growth, McKernan says

January 1, 1970  |  News

By Sigrid Tornquist “At the end of the day, the issues facing our members, whether domestic businesses or international, are essentially the same,” says Pete McKernan, chairman of the Industrial Fabrics Association International’s board of directors. According to McKernan, there ar…
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