With designers considering the entire life cycle of new products and the boundaries between form and function blurring, our approach to materials carries more weight than ever before. But so far there hasn't been an easy way to learn about materials or stay current with the latest innovations taking shape. To fill that void, Eastman Chemical Company recently re-launched the Eastman Innovation Lab, their storytelling platform connecting members of the design community to material science. "In the US, some students spend time studying materials and processing, but much of the learning is hands-on after that," explained EIL's Creative Manager, Farrell Calabrese. "By working directly with the design community we begin to facilitate that continued learning." 

The website was updated and expanded based on user feedback and caters to just about anyone involved in the world of design: students, educators, industrial designers, architects, design engineers and brands. It's structured around four sections—Materials, Projects, Stories and Themes—that work in tandem to help users better understand materials and processes. 

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The anchor point of the website is its Materials Library, guiding users through Eastman's portfolio with vital technical information. Alongside it are Projects, featuring case studies that point to specific design challenges and their material solutions, and Stories, chronicling the team's most successful collaborations and giving insight into an informed design process. If you're looking for a place to start, the Themes section allows you to explore a broader idea—like Sustainability or Education—before diving into specific case studies. 

By uncovering innovative ways of using existing materials and creating a space to explore new material solutions, the platform really drives home the notion that true innovation doesn't happen in isolation. It enables the worlds of design and engineering to meet somewhere in the middle and let material knowledge push design forward. "An example of that, though an older example, is when we worked with Ziba to explore the material benefits of our Tritan(Tm) material," explains Calabrese. "They really challenged our engineers to think outside of the box and push the material to do things we did not think were possible. In return, Ziba's designers were able to create a beautiful application driven by the functionalities of the material, working with it in an intimate way and pushing its capabilities. Both parties learned so much through that process and that's what the EIL is about—sharing those experiences so that everyone can learn from them."