The Fabric System, Mark Lewis for Project Office Furniture plc. 1987-89
The Fabric System comprised of a presentation portfolio containing 13 pages of colour themes, fabric colours and fabric types, displays 1800 options. There are 30 different fabrics available in 60 different colours. The 10 colour-themed boards display cross-referenced and numbered fabric swatches, allowing the chosen fabric to be viewed, touched and then listed for specification in association with the product code number. The user manual and swatch book accompany the portfolio ensuring that the kit is a resource that a client can utilise as his or her imagination and installation demand.
Project Office Furniture plc, is Britain’s largest furniture manufacturer, supplying office furniture to most institutions operating within the UK and is expanding with export initiatives into Europe and the United States. The fabric portfolio, together with new products, point-of-sales literature, and a new corporate identity, has been devised as a total service package to support product sales.
The fabric system started its evolution three years prior to the intended introduction to the company’s sales force and clients. The original offering of fabric choices for the office furniture seating and screens was limited to four fabric types available in a basic colour range, and present in a three-fold switch card. Intensive research into Project’s market expectations, fabric type, and world trends in fabric and colour, initiated the vision that would make extensive choice feasible without the need for traditional stocking levels. Presenting all this in a form that facilitated the choice-making process in a simple, practical and impressive manner, was a challenging task. Negotiations with suppliers, reconciliation of colours available with colours wanted, and the technical evolution of the pack and its information were managed by Mark Lewis Design, along with the other issues on Project Office Furniture plc’s development agenda.