WO2011009155A1 - Furniture assembly method. system & product - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses a chair having an upholstered seat (2, 14) and an upholstered backrest (3, 11) and various visible portions fabricated from plastics material such as a backrest shell (12), a seat shell (15) and a base (18). The customer is able to select a coloured fabric from which the seat and backrest are upholstered. In addition, the customer is able to select a colour for the plastic from which the visible portions are fabricated so that the plastic colour augments or enhances the fabric colour. In particular, office chairs can be manufactured in corporate colour schemes, or sports team colour schemes, which involve two colours.

Description

FURNITURE ASSEMBLY METHOD. SYSTEM & PRODUCT

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to chairs, and in particular, to an office chair having a least one visible portion fabricated from plastics material.

Background Art

In known chair construction, particularly office chairs, the chair has a seat and a backrest which are upholstered with a fabric material. The chair also has a number of visible moulded plastic portions, such as a backrest shell which forms the "back of the backrest". Such visible plastic portions are provided in a standard colour-typically black since this colour does not show dirt.

Thus the typical low cost product "range" has a single colour visible moulded plastic portion(s) and a single fabric used to upholster the seat and backrest of all the chairs in the "range". For example, black moulded plastic portions and black fabric for the upholstered portions. Thus the "range" of chairs is sometimes one, if no arm rests are provided, and two if chairs both with, and without, arm rests are provided. The higher cost product range typically provides a limited range of fabrics all of which do not clash with the single standard colour of the visible plastic portions.

Finally, in some rare instances, the customer is offered one or two possible plastic colours such as black or bone (light brown) from which to choose. Such colours are regarded as neutral and do not clash with any of the range of fabrics offered.

Where a range of fabrics are available and the customer is to select one, it is a simple matter to provide small samples, or swatches, of the actual fabrics. This enables the customer to assess both the fabric colour and the fabric texture by touching an actual sample of all the possible fabric choices.

However, there is presently no equivalent to fabric swatches for moulded plastic colours. This arises because of several factors. Importantly, the final colour of moulded plastic articles produced from the same starting material can vary according to whether or not various additives such as fire retardant compositions, ultraviolet light stabilizers and the like are added to the starting material. Thus a one piece plastic injection moulded chair without any upholstered portions and produced in, say, five standard colours such as red, blue, green, yellow and grey can have the "standard" colour vary considerably from that illustrated in a brochure, for example, according to whether the chairs are intended for indoor use (and thus have no UV stabilization) or are intended for outdoor use, and thus do have UV stabilizers. Thus brochures for such all plastic non-upholstered chairs typically include a warning to customers that the actual colour of the chair purchased may differ from the colour illustrated in the brochure. Another reason for this is that ink colours used in printing brochures are normally different from pigments used in plastic injection moulding.

In modern corporate life, corporations and other business entities often adopt "corporate colour schemes" which are used as a trade mark to identify the corporation in the mind of the public. For example, the petroleum company BP (formerly British Petroleum) utilizes the predominant colour green in association with a secondary colour yellow, for example. Similarly football teams, and their supporter clubs and associated entities, utilize the "club colours" such as red and green for South Sydney Rugby League or blue and yellow for Sydney University Rugby Union. In addition, such organizations take steps to ensure that the correct shade of the "corporate colours" are used. In printing letterhead, and printed materials such as advertising it is possible to use standard ink pigments which are repeatable. The PANTONE (Registered Trade Mark) system is the best known of these. Thus BP, for example, can specify two PANTONE numbers and thereby ensure that the ink used to print some new brochures, or the like, will faithfully reproduce the "corporate colours".

However, it is not in general possible to mix, say, two different shades of green ink and thereby produce a printed result with a shade intermediate the two precursor inks.

US Patent No. 5,498,157 (Hall) entitled "Dental colour mixture indicator device" provides a particularly relevant discussion as to why extrapolating between an approximate colour and a colour to be matched is not a linear and straight forward exercise. In the disclosure of Hall, there is provided a system for matching a colour by which an appropriate selection of central colour for each particular luminance level is made in accordance with a determined relation of hue shift with respect to luminance. This results in a more accurate approximation of a colour to be matched as it is a function of the luminance level of a colour as well as an offset in hue.

Genesis of the Invention

It is the genesis of the present invention to provide a chair, such as an office chair, which in particular can be offered to those entities having a corporate colour scheme. Furthermore, it is desirable to also offer a chair in which not only is the fabric colour selected by the customer, but the plastic colour can be selected to augment the fabric colour, and thereby arrive at an overall enhanced visual result.

Summary of the Invention

In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a chair having a seat and backrest both of which are upholstered with a fabric, said chair including at least one visible portion fabricated from plastics material, wherein said portion has a colour selected from a predetermined range of colours to augment the colour of said fabric.

Preferably, the at least one visible portion is selected from the group consisting of a backrest rear panel, an arm rest, and a base. More preferably, the colour of the fabric and the colour of the visible plastics portion are both selected by a customer. According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of

construction of a chair having a seat and a backrest and at least one visible portion fabricated from plastics material, said method comprising the steps of:

(i) a customer selecting a fabric from a range of fabrics each with a predetermined colour,

(ii) said customer selecting the colour of said plastics material to augment the colour of said selected fabric, said plastics material colour being selected from a predetermined range of plastics colours,

(iii) fabricating said visible portion(s) from said selected plastics material, (iv) upholstering said seat and backrest with said selected fabric, and (v) assembling said chair.

It can therefore be seen that there is advantageously provided a chair in which the, or all the, visible plastic portion(s) of the chair has/have a colour that can be selected so as to augment the colour of the fabric. This provides customers with two possible advantages. Firstly, a corporate colour scheme can be faithfully reproduced in office furniture, for example. Secondly, even if there is no corporate colour scheme, once a fabric has been selected the colour of the plastic portions can be selected to augment the fabric colour. Thus not only does the plastic colour not clash with the fabric colour, but the plastic colour is also not merely neutral or unobtrusive. Instead colour augmentation or enhancement can be achieved.

Brief Description of the Drawings

A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a rear perspective view of a chair according to the preferred embodiment. Detailed Description

As seen in Fig. 1 the chair 1 of the preferred embodiment has a seat 2 and a backrest 3. A pair of arm rests 4, 5 are secured to the underside of the seat 2.

The backrest 3 has an upholstered forward portion 11 and a plastic shell 12 which forms the "back of the backrest". Similarly, the seat 2 has an upholstered cushion 14 and a seat shell 15 also formed from plastics material.

The backrest 3 is connected to the seat shell 15 by means of a backrest support 17 and the entire chair is supported by a base 18 having five arms 19 and a support stem 20.

It will be apparent that the seat shell 15, the backrest shell 12 and the arm rests 4, 5 are normally all fabricated from plastics material. The backrest support 17 and base 18 are either fabricated from metal or fabricated from plastics material. Irrespective of which style of construction is used there are substantial portions of the chair which are fabricated from plasties material and thus which are able to have a colour selected so as to augment the colour of the fabric used to upholster the backrest forward portion 11 and seat cushion 14.

It will be apparent that if the chair 1 has the plastic portions fabricated from dark green and the backrest forward portion 11 and seat cushion 14 upholstered in a yellow fabric, then such chairs will compliment employees of BP who may well also be wearing dark green uniforms with yellow piping. Thus the employee uniforms and the office chairs meld into a comprehensive artistic whole.

Thus the customer can choose the colour of the visible plastic portion(s) from a printed colour chart, or like selection guide. Also the customer can choose the fabric from a collection of fabric swatches, or like selection guide.

The foregoing describes only one embodiment of the present invention and modifications, obvious to those skilled in the furniture arts, can be made thereto without departing from the scope of the present invention. The term "comprising" (and its grammatical variations) as used herein is used in the inclusive sense of "including" or "having" and not in the exclusive sense of

"consisting only of.

Claims

1. A chair having a seat and back rest both of which are upholstered with a fabric, said chair including at least one visible portion fabricated from plastics material, wherein said portion has a colour selected from a predetermined range of colours to augment the colour of said fabric.

2. The chair as claimed in claim 1 wherein said at least one visible portion is selected from the group consisting of a backrest rear panel, an arm rest and a base.

3. The chair as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein both the colour of said fabric and the colour of said visible plastics portion are selected by a customer.

4. The chair as claimed in any one of claims 1-3 wherein the colour of said fabric and the colour of said visible portion constitute two colours of a corporate colour scheme.

5. The chair as claimed in any one of claims 1-3 wherein the colour of said fabric and the colour of said visible portion constitute two colours of a sporting club or team.

6. The chair as claimed in any one of claims 1-5 wherein said visible plastics portion has a colour selected from a plastic colour selection guide.

7. The chair as claimed in any one of claims 1-6 wherein said fabric is selected from a collection of fabric swatches.

8. A method of construction of a chair having a seat and a backrest and at least one visible portion fabricated from plastics material, said method comprising the steps of:

(i) a customer selecting a fabric from a range of fabrics each with a

predetermined colour,

(ii) said customer selecting the colour of said plastics material to augment the colour of said selected fabric, said plastics material colour being selected from a predetermined range of plastics colours,

(iii) fabricating said visible portion(s) from said selected plastics material,

(iv) upholstering said seat and backrest with said selected fabric, and

(v) assembling said chair.

9. A chair constructed by the method as claimed in claim 8.