Designers can see how a product looks with special effect pigments

Designers can see how a product looks with special effect pigments

SpecialChem is promising to help designers choose and select surface effects for plastics more effectively.

It has launched an online special effects gallery. Designers can choose one of five different types of product – such as a razor or a mirror housing – and overlay it with a range of surface designs, using special effect pigments from US materials company Engelhard.

Bernard Hasson, chief executive of SpecialChem, said: “End users don’t want to know the chemistry of pigments, they only want to see end results.”

Hasson said that he hopes to sign up more pigment companies to participate in the gallery, increasing the range of colours and effects available to designers.

Designers can now choose a type of effect that they want to achieve, and email their request to SpecialChem. Although this service is free, Hasson says that SpecialChem’s aim is to turn these types of request into confirmed projects.

Current users of the system include Tupperware, Procter & Gamble, Renault and Hewlett Packard. Customers have used the system to select a metal-look automotive part, a pearlescent shampoo bottle and a ‘glitter look’ razor.