EKORNES

As the largest furniture manufacturer in the Nordic region, Ekornes ASA owns ergonomically designed furniture brands such as Ekornes, Stressless and Svane brands. The products are manufactured at seven factories in Norway and are sold in large parts of the world via a network of national and regional sales companies.

With a vision to be one of the world’s most attractive suppliers of furniture for the home, Ekornes creates furniture that, in terms of price, design, comfort and functionality, appeals to the broadest of audiences. A focus on quality and their impact on the environment means that Ekornes furniture has become a firm favourite with discerning consumers and its popularity continues to grow.

The client required a means of displaying key product details whilst not detracting from the product itself. The display needed to highly visible and durable for the busy retail environment.

The finish of the retail printing solution had to be sharp enough to convey the product’s features and benefits, whilst the material was to be hardwearing and suitable enough for potential buyers to “experience” the furniture.

Cestrian conducted an audit across a range of independent Ekornes stockists to ensure that the proposed solution would work with all product dimensions.

Measurements were taken for each sofa design and prototype fabric sashes were created for testing. The sashes were printed on display fabric, hemmed along each edge and the two ends sewn together to create a loop so they could slide onto the edge of the cushions.

The prototypes were approved and rolled out across all stores.

The solution provided the following benefits:

• Highly durable and visibly effective retail graphics printing all delivered within budget
• Easy to fit and replace by in-store employees
• Template design for standardising future campaigns
• Compact solution for stores who had a limited amount of space

The fabric sashes were produced on a Mimaki 320 textile printer which has a maximum size of 3m x 50m and resolution of up to 1080dpi capable of printing 60sqm per hour.

The designs were printed onto a 205gsm display fabric, suitable for a range of applications including retail graphics, theatrical backdrops, flags, banners, soft signage and point of sale graphics.

"Cestrian has provided a solution which enables our consumers to see the benefits and functionality of our new ErgoAdapt sofa. This product has proven to be extremely flexible and hard wearing particularly where we have used it at our outside exhibitions. Thank you for taking the time to visit our retailers to get a better understanding of the brief and ultimately provide a great solution.”