'The future's bright, the future's orange'. If written from the furniture industry's perspective, is the 'future's bright and is most definitely white'. The most prominent trend with respect to work surface finish and trim details was white is the flavour of the month. There is a trend every two years witnessed with respect to surface finish. It was evident that for mainstream systems furniture, white is the most popular option being promoted.

Where timber finishes were on display dark walnut finishes were popular as were some mid toned highly grained reconstituted veneers. Overall, the general trend for finishes would be white laminates/mfc's, walnut tones, silver and stainless steel trim details.

With respect to general desking design, never before has 'benching' been promoted as much as at this most recent exhibition. Even traditional beam based desking systems not designed for pure benching applications were being presented showing their suitability in offering benching type solutions.

Whilst the merits of benching are understood by industry professionals, it will be interesting to see how welcome this product will be received for companies that work in a more traditional way.

For ease of reference of this report we have developed a number of headings that summarise the variety of Orgatec 2008.

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