CMF Design

CMF stands for Colour, Materials, & Finish, it is a creative stream spanning from trends and material research all the way through to delivery of materials for production. How a product looks, feels and smells is intrinsic to its’ value.

Envisage CMF Design are a Consultancy with a wide-ranging perspective across multiple design sectors including Automotive, Transportation & Mobility, Product Design, Wearable Tech, Consumer Electronics, and Interiors.

What if you had a crystal ball to look into your future, to guide you in making the best decisions and creating the right strategies that are right for your future customers? Helping our clients make these predictions is our skill. Future thinking isn’t based on chance.

Creating thoughtful interior moods through careful selection of colours, materials and finishes our CMF team can present concept sketches and visualisations before working with our in-house production facilities to bring any idea from inception to completion.

With access to on-site manufacturing, industry specialists and a growing materials library we offer a collaborative approach, combining technical knowledge with trend forecasting, blue sky projects through to production.

We look to the emerging trends in materials, lifestyle and technology and fuse this with iconic design and quality resources to reflect our enthusiasm for past, present, and future CMF.

Come to us with a concept and let us figure it out for you – this is where we excel.

Material Development

Attention to detail, collaboration and an inquisitive mind are some of the key attributes to material development. Getting into the head of how and why things work enable us to become problem solvers and work alongside other experts to deliver materials to the right level.

Experienced in realising materials for production.
Skilled in all aspects of material development.
From colour adjustments to material composition exploration.
Sustainable materials such as plastics and chrome alternatives.
Reinterpreting in-house waste to develop own unique materials.

Research

This is a fundamental part of any material strategy or material implementation. From looking at macro consumer trends, specific finish trends, through to material exploration and technique application, the possible areas are exhaustive. Here are a few examples:

New concept materials.
New production materials.
Material properties.
Sustainable materials.
Material processing & embellishment techniques.
Colour forecasting.
Cultural / historical colour.
Macro trends (consumer).
CMF specific trends.
Supplier sourcing.
Competitor analysis and benchmarking.
Material life cycles.

Trend Forecasting

Trends are an important part of design strategies. Understanding what is going to be important to your customers in is essential. Without these insights, you run the risk of products becoming out of date before they have even launched. Even if you think your brand doesn’t want to follow certain CMF trends, you still need to have an awareness of consumer purchasing drivers for the future.

Trend research is second nature to us, the future is always in our minds. We use various avenues to gather relevant research:

Events & exhibitions.
Supplier network.
Trend publications.
Global connections.
Innate knowledge & peripheral vision.

Material Library

With a large and comprehensive Materials Library that we are constantly enhancing with new and innovative materials. Our varied project work allows us to gather a broad range of materials and technologies without being limited to a specific industry or application.

Strong focus on sustainability.
Embellishment technique samples.
Substrates.
Hard materials such as woods, paper composites and resins.
Soft trim fabrics and textiles.
Translucent, Lightweight and Decorative.
Functional.
Materials to serve as inspiration / jumping off points.
Direct material references to support clients.

We wanted to develop a colour & materials approach that appealed to the end customer and encouraged the use of buses again. We wanted to challenge the norm for the industry and look at using a suite of materials and colours not commonly seen on buses. Switch e1 was extremely well received by press and customers and we’re confident that the work carried out with Envisage ensured the bus was presented in the best possible manner.

Peter Freedman Chief Marketing & Sustainability Officer - Switch Mobility