Roland-printed vehicle wrap takes to the speedway

August 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Richard Childress Racing’s Tyler Reddick drove the No. 8 car with a full Roland DG wrap in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in June.   Originally scheduled for March, the race was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic and run without spectat…
Read More
Innovating products for a COVID-19 marketplace

August 1, 2020  |  Swatches

The word pivot will go down as an industry buzzword for 2020, but in sailing, the equivalent term is tack or jibe. Dimension-Polyant (DP), a leader in the production of technical sailcloth, has “tacked” to meet the urgent demands of the PPE market, with a number of manufacturers tapping the comp…
Read More
Balanced fabric collection for inspired interiors

July 1, 2020  |  Swatches

In Sweden, there is a concept known as “lagom.” It’s a way of living life in balance—not too much or too little—a stress-reducing happy medium for daily life. Lagom is the inspiration for the 2020 collection by German textile company nya nordiska. It includes five exclusive fabric innovati…
Read More
Redesigned tent for COVID-19

July 1, 2020  |  Swatches

While numerous end-product manufacturers have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by fabricating products that they have never made before, others looked to past products and designs to apply to today’s challenges.     Rainier Industries’ commercial tent division brought back a tent design that…
Read More
American Tent provides Puerto Rico earthquake relief

July 1, 2020  |  Swatches

For Green Bay, Wis.-based event tent manufacturer American Tent, what began as a website chat ended as a disaster relief effort.  Representatives from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) reached out to American Tent through the company’s chat feature in February, needing tents that could se…
Read More
Innovative face masks

July 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Everyone from couture fashion brands to Girl Scouts have taken up mask making to fight the spread of COVID-19, with textile companies drawing on their unique capabilities to introduce new innovations. Patterned after N95 masks, the Spacer Dome Pro mask from Apex Mills, Inwood, N.Y., includes an air …
Read More
Marine fabrication community steps up to make PPE

June 1, 2020  |  Swatches

As the new normal for businesses around the U.S. became fabricating personal protective equipment, the marine fabrication community stepped up. Carl Pellegrini, owner of SeaCanvas, Egg Harbor Township, N.J., spent several weeks this spring making and donating face shields to 10 local police and fire…
Read More
Temporary structures for sanitizing and containing

June 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented—and speedy—innovations. Multinational company Stretch Marquees and Fabric Structures spent the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic repurposing existing products and creating new ones to meet the needs of the global health crisis. The results include a d…
Read More
Antiviral treatment for face masks

June 1, 2020  |  Swatches

Swiss textile innovation company HeiQ mobilized quickly to fight the dire coronavirus threat, introducing HeiQ Viroblock NPJ03, an antiviral and antimicrobial textile technology that is proven to be effective against COVID-19 in face mask testing. The idea behind the HeiQ technology is to mitigate t…
Read More
Companies partner to deliver field hospital cots

June 1, 2020  |  Swatches

The rapid spread of COVID-19 created an urgent need for medical equipment of all kinds. One priority is ensuring there are enough beds for patients who need care. This necessity gave PioneerIWS, a family-owned steel fabricator in Dalton, Ohio, an idea. The company assembled a team of more than a doz…
Read More