Archive for the ‘Positive Vibes’ Category

BLANCO has been recognized as an essential sinks and faucets supplier by a panel of distinguished judges for Kitchen Trends Magazine. Playing a significant role in 2012-2013 American kitchen creations, BLANCO was recognized for excellence in design, function, product specification and style.

The Trends Annual Top 50 American Kitchens includes some of the most innovative and creative projects from homes and kitchens around the world. Trends selection panel recognized BLANCO’s integral part in making kitchens equipped with high performance, trendy and sustainable sinks and faucets.

“We are so honored to be recognized by Kitchen Trends for our part in making American kitchens so well furnished,” states Tim Maicher, Director of Marketing for BLANCO.

Trendsideas.com is a highly regarded portal for the home and commercial design consumer and professional industries. It offers an up-to-date searchable database of all the content from Kitchen Trends, Home Trends, Bathroom Trends and Home & Architectural Trends publications.

BLANCO wins a Silver 2012 Event Technology Award (ETA) in the Best Use of Technology To Build Event Attendance category. BLANCO along with Modenus, held a packed Champagne and Cupcakes Tweet-A-Thon event during the 2012 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) to raise money for Water For People, a charitable organization that ensures sustainable safe and clean drinking water for people around the world. Hundreds of tweets from designers, editors, writers and invited guests, reached almost a million people during the event, which lasted for a few hours. BLANCO leveraged the event to launch their CERANA™ Fireclay Apron Front Sink, CRYSTALLINE™ Hideaway Sink and a new collection of water saving faucets during the show.

The ETA’s goal is to choose the best use of event technology which heightens brand experiences, develops strong outreach and communication while creating an open dialogue between product brand promotion and target audiences during trade shows or events.

“This is exciting for BLANCO and for all of our Twitter followers,” states Tim Maicher, Director of Marketing for BLANCO. “BLANCO has fully embraced social media in all aspects and it is indeed an honor to be recognized for our efforts with this prestigious award while giving us a chance to help raise much needed funds for Water For People.”

To learn more, follow BLANCO @blancoamerica on Twitter.

This wonderful perspective post is penned by BLANCO Design Council member, Leslie Clagett of KB Culture:

Once bound for the landfill, these kitchen sinks have resurfaced as a modern sculpture. Stainless steel is 100% recyclable into the same product with no reduction in quality, so the artistic detour made by these sinks doesn’t mean it’s the end of their life cycle.

Fairly uniform in size and shape, 166 stainless steel basins were formed into a cube that stands about 11’3” on each side. The sculpture, created by an entity calling itself Trashformaciones, was installed in various locations around Barcelona; the piece assumed a different character in each context.

On the beach, as a man-made object in a natural setting, it’s a study in contrast. A doorway allows viewers to enter the structure, where the experience of the artwork becomes more participatory: sun filters through the drain holes, filling the silvery space with shifting shafts of light.

In an urban courtyard, the cube appears as a more conventional sculpture. The repetitive forms echo high-rise architecture; lit from within, it glows like an apartment building at night.

As many of you know Andie Day and I recently hosted an event in Boston called the #InStyleTour where BLANCO was featured. BLANCO was also gracious in sponsoring this event, which included area designers and bloggers and combined the beauty of BLANCO products with artwork by Giovanni DeCunto. To add to the event BLANCO offered a CULINA faucet and Giovanni offered a piece of art to be awarded to two guests in attendance.

The CULINA Faucet by BLANCO.

Painting by Giovanni DeCunto

Surely two great pieces of art!

Here Michelle Cortizo, the winner of the CULINA faucet,
with Christy Emens from BLANCO and Giovanni DeCunto.

Below is Laurie Gorelick who was the winner of the painting by Giovanni.

The idea behind #InStyleTour was to create an event that would have a high degree of interest at looking more into BLANCO’s product line and also combining that with art.

Now many companies do host events but in fact when you get there it’s all about their products and more of a sales pitch. InStyleTour is about bringing together people that have mutual interests and a common bond started through social media and continued on in real life. It’s about building personal relationships and community, bound together through social media, design and a common interest in products of high quality and lasting value.
As these communities are formed, they create a place where conversations happen and in hosting events like this, a lasting memory is formed by those that attend.

BLANCO understands the value in creating and nurturing these communities to advance awareness of, not only their products, but also the people that make BLANCO such a great company. They see the long-term value in building relationships with designers and bloggers and having events such as this creates memories of a great evening, wonderful conversations and beautiful products. That memory will be there long after the event has passed.

Last night, BLANCO took home an Interior Design BOY (Best of Year) Finalist Award for the CULINA faucet in the Kitchen Fittings/Fixtures category. BLANCO has been recognized by the design community with four Interior Design BOY awards in the last three years for MicroEdge, SOLON, RONIS and now CULINA. (Three of the four awards were BOY Winners.) The editors of Interior Design Magazine post their Merit Finalist selections from a wide field of entries and then BOY Winners are selected by the design community through online voting. Over 60,000 votes were tallied in this year’s competition. Here are the photos from an amazing evening. To see more BOY Winners, visit www.interiordesign.net.

Tim Maicher, Director of Marketing for BLANCO, displays CULINA’s Finalist Award

We are so excited to be filming demonstration videos for the NEW BLANCO Website (coming soon)!

We spent last Thursday, February 10th on set at Poggenpohl’s new Philadelphia Kitchen Design Studio with Angela Pfeifer, Showroom Manager/Kitchen Designer for Poggenpohl and Christy Emens, Marketing Communications Manager for BLANCO. Poggenpohl’s stunning showroom was the perfect setting to shoot the new demonstration videos for BLANCO’s RONIS Entertainment Sink, SOLON Compost System and 3-in-1 Strainer. Video is such a great medium for telling a story – especially when you have such innovative and dimensional products.

Angela and our producer Larry polish up the original SteelArt sink on display at Poggenpohl.

Lights, Camera, Action! RONIS and SOLON are getting their turn!

Yes! We're having a party! At least RONIS makes party prep easy!

Christy Emens preps for her demo video on SOLON.

BLANCO welcomes Tim Ahearn, National Sales Manager. Ahearn comes to BLANCO with over 30 years of sales experience in the kitchen and bath/decorative plumbing industry.

“I’m pleased to have Tim Ahearn leading BLANCO’s sales efforts given his extensive experience in the industry and channel knowledge of plumbing products,” states Marc Nover, President of BLANCO. “He is a highly respected professional that will make an immediate positive impact.”

“The future at Blanco is bright,” states Ahearn. “Our continued success with SILGRANIT^® in conjunction with the quality and innovation in stainless steel has secured BLANCO’s spot at the top of the decorative kitchen sink business. I am excited to help lead the Blanco sales team to new heights.”

MicroEdge Wins IDEA Award.

BLANCO MicroEdge is a 2010 International Design Excellence Award (IDEA Award) Finalist. The prestigious IDEA Award is a celebration of the year’s most inventive and creative products presented by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). BLANCO MicroEdge is one of the most awarded sink innovations on the market today and has been recognized by the following: The Good Design Award, Interior Design’s Best of Year (Winner), Professional Builder 100 Best New Products Award, and K+BB Product Innovator Award. The coveted 30-year-old IDEA competition draws hundreds of entries each year from over 29 countries around the world. This year’s winners included stand outs from Method, Samsung, Herman Miller, Microsoft, OXO, Panasonic and more. For more information visit: www.idsa.org. “It is a genuine honor for BLANCO to be acknowledged by the International Designers Society of America’s IDEA competition,” expresses Tim Maicher, Director of Marketing for BLANCO. “The field of entries is one of the largest we have been up against and it’s a remarkable compliment to win. When we launched MicroEdge, we never imagined that the technology would be so widely accepted by designers and would accumulate so many honors in such a short time. The industry was truly waiting for a new innovation like this – it’s the right product at the right time.” About MicroEdge MicroEdge represents the first breakthrough in stainless steel sink design since the introduction of the undermount sink more than 10 years ago. MicroEdge is a sleek overmount sink technology that creates the illusion of an expensive flushmount installation. Designers and homeowners can now achieve the highly coveted flush look for less time and money as MicroEdge can be installed over virtually any counter material. MicroEdge’s unique ultra-fine (1.25 mm) rim gives this sink its near seamless edge – a precision finish so demanding, only BLANCO could make it a reality. The MicroEdge top-mounted sinks can be positioned easily and secured with mounting clips or alternatively, can be installed as a traditional flushmounted sink by an experienced solid surface specialist.

BLANCO receives a prestigious IDGA for its SOLON Compost System. The award is presented by New York House magazine at GreenBuildingsNY (held in June at the Jacob Javits Convention Center) and honors the greenest materials and most sustainable innovations in every category, from soft goods to lighting, appliances and building materials.

According to Nancy Meyer, Editor for New York House, “BLANCO’s SOLON Composter was selected by a panel of independent judges as outstanding among all the many entries in the “other products” category. They really felt that composting is crucial and that this product makes it easy for consumers.” The panel of five experts from architecture and design vetted the international field of entries and debated the environmental impact and issues surrounding each product. The panel agreed that composting is an important practice that needs to be brought to consumers’ attention, and that BLANCO’s SOLON is not only functional and convienient – it actually encourages composting.

The Blanco SOLON compost system is comprised from the highest grade recycled stainless steel. SOLON effortlessly collects organic waste below the counter and its stunning design allows homeowners to beautifully incorporate green living into their kitchen.

“We are honored to receive an Innovative Green Design Award for SOLON,” says Tim Maicher, Director of Marketing for Blanco. “The SOLON Compost System is an eco-friendly way to bring the beauty of BLANCO from the kitchen to the garden and we are thrilled to be recognized for this.”

Lori Dolnick accepts the IDGA for BLANCO from New York House's Nancy Meyer.

MicroEdge has won numerous design awards, including the Good Design Award.

BLANCO MicroEdge™ has received a 2009 Good Design Award. BLANCO, among the most awarded sink and faucet companies in the world, has also won recognition for its revolutionary MicroEdge technology from the iF Awards, Professional Builder 100 Best New Products Award, and K+BB Product Innovator Award.  The BLANCO FLOW™ sink featuring MicroEdge technology also won a Red Dot Design Award and was a 2009 Interior Design “Best of Year” Winner.

The Good Design Award is presented each year by the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design. Recipients are recognized for the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product and graphic designs produced around the world.

Founded in 1988, the Museum is dedicated to the Art of Design in all areas of the discipline: architectural, industrial and product design, graphics and urban planning. The emphasis of the Good Design program (chi-athenaeum.org) is on quality of the highest form, function and aesthetic, a standard beyond ordinary consumer products and graphics. The program forwards the ideals of a design process that embodies product excellence and endurance and strong public identity.