An Interview with Tommy Keener

Tommy Keener, senior director of design, Tarkett North America.
Photos courtesy of Tarkett

Digital tools are a necessity for designers and specifiers, especially as we embrace hybrid work models. Selecting the right hues can be particularly challenging when working remotely or using outdated devices. “The need for visualization and digital tools is almost overwhelming. We knew we were heading in a certain direction, but the pandemic definitely sped everything up. People began working from home, so we had to provide the right tools for artists and designers. Not being able to visualize something in a room, or at least see it online, makes it difficult to choose the right color or product,” said Tommy Keener, senior director of design, Tarkett North America.

Anna Zappia (AZ): What types of flooring will we see in 2022?

Tommy Keener (TK): Everything that we’re seeing and that we’re designing is all about health and wellbeing, and how can we affect that with flooring in a space. We’ve done a lot of research and looked at neurodiversity and the different types of spaces that support people if they are hypoactive or hyperactive, for example. We understand now that flooring can make a space more comfortable for people who learn or work differently.

We’ve really focused on the qualities of textiles and how they make us feel, but the design also has to be sustainable. As a company, we want to make sure that our product isn’t something that will be dated in two years or three years. We want it to last for our customers, so we really work on the performance as well.

AZ: What is happening with color? 

TK: Everything is warming up. It’s that sense of cocooning whenever you see color. You want to feel safe now. There are some of the saturated colors, and the mix of warm and cool is a great thing to see now. Neutrals, I think, will still dominate. Those deeper blue hues, like the ones we showed at NeoCon, are really what people are responding to a lot. Be on the lookout for navy.

Tarkett’s suite of digital tools help designers select the right colors for flooring.

AZ: Tarkett’s new system can actually help with color selection. Can you tell me about it? 

TK: Our Brilliance Digital Color System is the most exciting thing for us. We knew that this system had to be intuitive. We had to make sure that we had all of our colors loaded in and that they were represented as accurately as possible. We understand that everyone’s monitors might not be color-calibrated.

Going through that process of testing the system was painstaking, but it was necessary. If users go on a website and there are any type of restrictions or blocks, it’s easy to get frustrated. Then they simply won’t use the tool the way it was intended. And so we spent a lot of time making sure that this tool was really easy to use.

The Brilliance Digital Color System allows designers to view and match colors easily.

A digital fan deck is part of the system. Or, if you have the traditional Tarkett fan deck, you can just take the number from that and put it in, and then it’ll pull up all the flooring products that correspond with the chosen shade. Customers can also use a Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams fan deck; they aren’t limited to ours. If someone doesn’t know which color they need, but they like a color they see in a store or something, they can actually scan it  with a color reader and then it will give them the Tarkett options that are the closest to the original hue. People can create palette boards, look at the sustainability information, and order samples.

We’ll expand on this even more in the future, because we have heard loud and clear from the customer feedback that people want and need everything in one place. They want more of these types of online tools to make their job easier. And now, especially with the pandemic, getting to the material libraries to find out what is available is a struggle because we’re not in the office anymore. That’s why I think this system is a real game-changer.

The design team at Tarkett continues to focus on flooring that supports health and wellbeing.

AZ: Tarkett has a suite of online visualizer tools for different types of flooring. Tell me about the one designed for the Color Splash rubber flooring, which was a hit at NeoCon. 

From saturated hues to classic neutrals, color is key for 2022.

TK: We created an online visualizer as a design tool for that specific product. Color Splash speckled rubber flooring is available in 50 standard colors, including solids that work with multicolored chip styles. With the Color Splash visualizer, you can see how those exact same chips will look in various configurations. So, it’s really cool, we love it.

AZ: How do you think these tools will evolve? What’s the next step?

TK: I think the next thing we’re all going to see is augmented reality. We are actually starting to see a little bit of it now. That’s what all of these visualizers are going to have eventually. It’s all going to be phone-based by the time everything is done. We can do so much more now with our phones than we could a few years ago. I really feel like virtual reality and augmented reality are that next step, and where we as an industry will get to, sooner than we think.