Color supplier Day-Glo Color Corp. is looking to expand its many-hued horizons.
The Cleveland-based firm on June 28 launched a new online interactive design center on its website. The design center allows current and potential customers to experiment with Day-Glo's portfolio of fluorescent, phosphorescent, pearlescent and thermochromic colors, said Kevin Sonby, vice president of marketing, in a recent interview at Plastics News' office in Akron.
On the site, the firm's colors can be applied to a three-dimensional object, and then manually rotated and viewed against a white or black background. Standard colors also can be boosted with fluorescent or phosphorescent (glow-in-the-dark) effects.
“We're well-known for our color palette, and now we're introducing new special effects technology and getting approvals for other industries like food-contact and cosmetics,” Sonby said.
“Our whole existing palette is available online,” he added. “We rely on our customer base to get our product to market. And the design community is a group we want to actively get closer to.”
In most cases, Day-Glo can get a physical sample of a material to customers within 24 hours of them developing a new look on the website.
Recent new products include new grades of Gem-Tone-brand colorants for use in clarified polypropylene applications such as pill bottles and closures. Day-Glo also makes specific grades of GloPrill-brand fluorescent pigments for PVC applications.
The 59-year-old company generates about one-third of its sales from plastics applications, with another third coming from coatings and a third from inks for graphic arts.
Day-Glo is a unit of RPM International Inc., a technology and manufacturing company based in Medina, Ohio. In addition to Cleveland, Day-Glo operates manufacturing sites in Twinsburg, Ohio; and Cudahy, Calif.; as well as plants in England and Belgium.
Day-Glo is one of several businesses included in RPM's industrial unit, which accounted for more than $450 million in sales for the quarter ended Feb. 28. A separate sales number for Day-Glo was unavailable.
Like other colorant suppliers, Day-Glo has been dealing with a trend among customers to reduce their number of colorant suppliers. This movement has gone along with a similar reduction in the number of retail stock-keeping units.
But Sonby said Day-Glo is up to the challenge.
“The design center is going to be a great tool for our customers to showcase what they can do with our products,” he said.
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