ISA International Sign Expo, 2023
Booth #4523
Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
April 12-14
More info

Matching playful design with solid aluminum panels to create a functional multi-purpose product for interior spaces.

Chemetal at it’s most colorful.

Standard Designs

Standard Colors

Transparency panels are available in an on-trend, playful color palette featuring 7 new powder coat colorways, plus a clear brushed finished. Interior and exterior grade, powder coating is a non-toxic, inert coating that produces minimal VOCs with waste that is easily reclaimed or disposed of. Order a Color Samples Chain here.

Transparency goes anywhere.

Made on thicker aluminum panels, metal designs from the Transparency collection can be installed without a wood backer, so they can go just about anywhere. This opens up a world of options, from layered and illuminated feature walls, suspended ceiling panels, dividing screens and more.

So beautiful you’ll want to frame it.

And you can. Transparency offers an optional frame system that fits panels up to 4’ x 8’ and is ideal as a freestanding room divider (with optional feet), hanging frame, half wall divider and more. Available as a frame system or frame lengths with assembly instructions. Cut-to-size and custom powder coat colors available. 

 #573 SA Cubed in Saffron

Chemetal is all about making cool stuff with metal.

To showcase new designs and fabrication capabilities, we designed a custom decorative panel for the reception area in our office. Take a look behind the scenes with our team and follow the process from design through production and installation.

Surface Mode: Transparency by Chemetal, coming in 2023.

Transparency is the latest addition to the Surface Mode series by Chemetal. Featuring laser cut aluminum panels and powder coated colors, the Transparency collection offers designers fresh and custimazble materials to define and divide interior spaces.

To stay up to date with the latest news and product launches from Chemetal, Treefrog and InteriorArts, sign up for our weekly email alert here.

The company adds more solar panels at its offices and manufacturing headquarters.

Chemetal, a manufacturer of metal designs and laminates for interior spaces, has expanded its solar footprint. The company added 420 panels, equaling 178 KW, to its existing rooftop solar array. The installation was completed in early fall 2021, and went live later in the fall, once all connections with the local utility were completed and approved. The company is now using all of the newer rooftop area of its 72,000 square foot facility for solar, an array that provides more than 50% of the facility’s annual electricity use.

“Adding solar is a good thing for companies to do, to use renewable energy sources. It’s a necessary step to reduce our carbon footprint,” says Geoff Schaefer, Chemetal President and Creative Director.

The new solar array adds to the 560 panels the company installed in 2017, soon after the company added to its existing facility, bringing the total number to just under 1000 panels, and the annual solar production to nearly 400 kW. As a frame of reference, a 1-2 kW array is considered adequate to power a 4 person home.

As they did previously, Chemetal once again partnered with Solect Energy of Hopkinton, MA for installation.

Chemetal is one of the world’s largest sources of metal designs and laminates for commercial and residential interiors. Chemetal makes many metal designs in-house, where its trained production crew creates works of art on metal with a manufacturing consistency.

The 50 year old family-owned business has a strong commitment to green practices. Many of its metal products are made entirely of aluminum, the most recycled material on the planet. Some of its aluminum finishes contain up to 85% recycled content, offering builders and architects LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits. LEED is the most widely used third-party verification for green buildings.

Additionally, Chemetal designs are part of the mindful MATERIALS library, a clearing house for material manufacturers to share product transparency information in an organized format. Chemetal materials in the library conform to VOC Emissions and are PVC-free.

Going further, Chemetal has created Health Product declarations (HPDs) for many of its materials. HPDs are a way to show compliance with the most rigorous green building certifications in the world, including LEED, The Living Building Challenge, and other standards which require that all materials used in a project are Red List Free. Chemetal is devoted to providing healthier materials which meet the standards of these next-generation building projects.

A quick video look at Chemetal Classic Metals including 700 Series: HPL Classics, 800 Series: Traditional Classics and 900 Series: Anodized Classics.

Introducing Surface Mode, new designs on thicker metals. Take a quick tour of the new collection.

It’s a new way of creating metal designs at Chemetal with Surface Mode, metal designs on thicker aluminum. We started with our already popular ALU metals – aluminums finished with a slightly linear, blackened color variation – and put them on thicker .09” aluminum.

Those are the building blocks of the new collection. We capped it off with a new matte black powder coated design on the same .09” aluminum.

#511 & #512 Powdered Black

Watch the Surface Mode Video

About Chemetal

Chemetal creates beautiful and innovative metal designs and laminates for interior spaces. It’s a second-generation family-owned company that has been in business for over 50 years. Chemetal makes many designs in-house in western Massachusetts and is available worldwide through an international, though mostly national, distributor network.

Chemetal creates beautiful and innovative metal designs and laminates for interior spaces. We make many designs in-house, and source others from some of the best suppliers in the world.

We back it up with excellent sales and customer service that is committed to helping you. This video shows some interior designs projects featuring Chemetal.

Chemetal was the Hospitality Spatial Awards sponsor for The Frame Awards on February 20 at De Kromhouthal in Amsterdam, part of the 2 day Frame Lab put on by Frame Magazine. The event celebrated the future of spatial design with designers, celebrants and contest entries from all over the world.

A leader in metal designs and laminates for interior spaces, Chemetal regularly sees its massive collection of metal designs and laminates specified into hospitality projects. “Hotels are where interior design market sectors collide” says Chemetal Creative Director and President Geoff Schaefer. “A lobby is a coffee shop, workplace, restaurant, and a branded environment. Designers are now challenged with design spaces in flux. Hospitality, furniture, corporate, experiential, signage, branding and even residential intersect in hotel spaces everywhere.”

The event featured a Lifetime Award Presentation to Philippe Starck, famed hotel, interiors and product designer (among other design feats). Starck goofed his way up the runway to the stage, made a dreamy, inspirational speech about how toys bored him when he was a child, and drifted away in a slipstream of fans and interviewers. He probably boarded his spaceship, designed a hotel, restaurant and vaporizer on his travels back to France, and was tucked into bed by midnight.

For everyone else, the night went late. The 5 course vegan meal, presented between awards categories was by all accounts (from veggies at least) excellent.

Besides Schaefer, who took the stage briefly, talked about what Chemetal does, and answered a few friendly questions from emcee and Frame Founder and Director Robert Thiemann, two other Chemetal staffers attended. “It was great to meetup with European designers and learn about their work, “said Paul Pickunka, Chemetal Vice President of Sales. “What a fantastic event for the Chemetal brand in front of so many global designers” echoed Leo Forrest, Chemetal National Sales Director, “and those smaller metric system sized Heinekens go down fast.”

Chemetal was lucky to share a table with several Frame Awards jury winners. Alex Fehre, from Studio Alexander Fehre, was awarded the Spatial Awards: Work, Large Office of the Year, Jury Vote for Bosch Automotive Steering. The Stuttgart based designer told the story of how he secured the job when he was a one man shop (with an intern) staffed up to 10, and worked tirelessly on this winning project.

Additionally, Dan Flower, Director of Design at HKS London accepted the Societal Award, Social Award, Jury Vote for Kachumbala Maternity Ward in eastern Uganda. The challenge of this project was to create a regional maternity ward for expectant mothers to reduce infant mortality in an impoverished area without regular electricity or drinking water.

“We’ve long advertised Chemetal in Frame,” says Schaefer, “we’re always excited when the magazine comes into the office, and we were honored to take part in such a well organized worldwide design event as Frame Awards.”

It’s a place Chemetal is right at home. That’s because designers all over the world have long been specifying metal designs and laminates from Chemetal in all of these commercial settings.

“Luxurious and extravagant…[with] layered arcs of bespoke-made gold and silver metallic plates” is how Studio XAG describes their design of this Chemetal Brushed Golden Aluminum (#931) and Brushed Aluminum (#902) Michael Kors window display. “The light from the spotlights reflects and bounces from gold metallic panels that line the floors, creating a bright and dazzling scene, to highlight product from the runway collection”. This window display was installed in stores across London, Paris, and Milan.

Besides reflective floor panels, designers cut Chemetal into rectangles that overlap to form a shimmering scale effect backdrop. Metal is a great choice for retail displays because it elevates any brand, and metal designs from Chemetal are lightweight, cost effective, and easy to fabricate. Bravo to Studio XAG! We’re happy to show such simple and powerful design (we love Michael Kors on Project Runway), and even happier that they chose to use Chemetal.

The “legal pot” era began in Massachusetts right before Thanksgiving 2018 and Chemetal was, unknowingly, front and center. Chemetal Gotham (#608) is installed on the front counter of NETA, a newly opened cannabis store in Northampton, MA, one town over from Chemetal’s Easthampton, MA headquarters.

NETA was reported to be the first legal non-medical marijuana store east of the Mississippi. From opening day, lines flowed around the block, disrupting traffic and requiring extra parking detail. Customers traveled from all over New England and beyond to wait in for hours to buy legal weed and edibles.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette, the local paper, featured a photo of Northampton’s mayor, the ceremonial first customer, standing at the counter front with a pot candy bar that he purchased as a memento for the City’s history museum.

A savvy Chemetal sales person zeroed in on something else. “Hey, doesn’t this look like Gotham on the counter,” read the early morning text making the rounds to Chemetal staffers. It sure did. Some research found that the store was designed by Providence, RI based design firm, Vision 3 Architects. A week or two later, a few Chemetal staffers made a “sales” call to confirm that it was Chemetal #608 Gotham on the counter fronts and service areas.

The installation looks great, and all the jokes around the office had Chemetal staff on a real “high” as we headed into the holiday season.

Chemetal Alu designs (#352 Alu Light, #353 Alu Medium, #354 Alu Dark) are popular aged aluminum designs that emulate the look of weathered or blackened steel. Here’s a quick look at how we make them, and how they’re used.

#352 – Alu Light

Custom metal designs from Chemetal decorate “The Diner.”

This year, at Salone del Mobile in Milan, Chemetal partnered with Rockwell Group, 2×4, and Surface Magazine on The Diner – a coast to coast exploration of American Design. The Diner was a pop-up space during Milan Design Week located off-site, in a funky old concrete railroad storage bunker just north of Milano Centrale.

A Supporting Partner of the The Diner, Chemetal created custom polished metal designs for the booth areas of The Diner.

Rockwell Group reached out to Chemetal in late 2017, based on embossed Dome and Triangle designs in Chemetal’s 2017 “Glowing Metals” new material launch. In 2017, Glowing Metals was named a finalist in Interior Design Magazine’s Best of Year (BOY) Awards.

Working with custom designs by The Diner graphics partner 2×4, Chemetal turned to one of their regular partners, Rhode Island-based Dorch Design, to produce plate prototypes on carved high density MDF.

“The more you simplify, the better things turn out,” says Chemetal Creative Director and President Geoff Schaefer, “this is especially true with Chemetal’s roll press process. Only when you start pressing protypes do you see where both design issues and really cool metal looks are happening.”

Once a design was chosen, Dorch Design produced a final 48” x 54” CNC “plate.” Chemetal pressed the design into reflective clear and brass-look anodized aluminum on its roll press, producing enough material to line the booth areas of The Diner.

The Diner was a huge success. It received the “Best Engagement” award from Milan Design Week. Plus, Chemetal #606 Blackened Aluminum, a popular design, was featured in the entry lobby.

“We really enjoyed creating these materials, and hanging out late night at The Diner, which is the archetypal diner time for me” says Schaefer. “The people at Rockwell were great to work with, I don’t think they slept much in Milan, but then again, nobody does during Saloni.”

Photo credit for all Milan photos
The Diner. Photo:Michele de Candia for Surface Media

Chemetal, a manufacturer of metal designs and laminates for interior spaces, has partnered with Solect Energy of Hopkinton, MA to install a 201.6 kilowatt (kW) solar energy system on the roof of its Easthampton manufacturing plant. The array consists of 560 photovoltaic (PV) panels, which are projected to produce 210,686 kilowatt hours (kwH) of energy annually.  Chemetal anticipates the array will provide up to 33% of its facility’s annual electricity use.

“We began seriously considering solar when we doubled the size of our facility in 2016,” said Geoff Schaefer, President / Creative Director of Chemetal. “The incentives, including tax credits and accelerated depreciation, were beneficial, as was the opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint with renewable energy. Solect did a great job making a complicated proposition clear and straightforward; their pricing was competitive and they were very helpful in shepherding us through the process.”

Chemetal is one of the world’s largest sources of metal designs and laminates for commercial and residential interiors. Chemetal makes many metal designs in-house, where its trained production crew creates works of art on metal with a manufacturing consistency.

The 50 year old family-owned business has a strong commitment to green practices. Many of its metal products are made entirely of aluminum, the most recycled material on the planet. Some of its aluminum finishes contain up to 85% recycled content, offering builders and architects LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits. LEED is the most widely used third-party verification for green buildings. The company recycles paper and cardboard materials to minimize additions to the waste stream.  It also sells any scrap metal material to be repurposed. The company is also a FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified supplier for its Treefrog real wood veneer laminate products. FSC certification ensures that products come from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social and economic benefits.

“Given its strong commitment to green building products that feature LEED and FSC certification, Chemetal’s move to solar energy was natural,” said Scott Howe, Partner, Senior Vice President at Solect Energy. “Chemetal will create its signature products utilizing clean energy. The company will benefit from lower energy costs, tax and other financial incentives, and have the satisfaction of knowing they are improving on their already strong pledge to protect the planet.”

A new community in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood is evolving with the global headquarters of New Balance. Highly visible from the Mass Pike on the way into Boston, this iconic structure is the largest imprint of Boston Landing, a new mixed-use space that its developers hail as “the western gateway to Boston.” The space marries work, home and entertainment in one “social” hub that also houses a residential tower, additional office buildings, the Celtics and Bruins new practice facilities, ground level retail and restaurants alongside an outdoor park space.

It is all designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects, who were asked to envision the “workplace of the future” for New Balance, the first building completed on the campus. The goal was to create  a 250,000- square-foot, five-story open office environment that reflected the company’s culture and heritage.  . “The New Balance workspace was designed for collaboration, innovation and flexibility. It is a high performance workplace that reflects the Boston-based brand’s core values of teamwork and innovation,” explains Elizabeth Lowrey, a Principal at Elkus Manfredi.

“We were looking to capture the feeling of a historic building by using the bare metal. The shape, height and many materials of the new New Balance headquarters drew their design inspiration from the New Balance factory building in Lawrence,” states Lowrey. The idea was to connect with new materials, and this is where Chemetal, a leading manufacturer of metal designs and laminates, joined the project.

Chemetal’s aluminum materials provided the solution for the interior workstations. Nancy Corbin, a specification rep from Richelieu, one of Chemetal’s distributors in Boston, worked with Paul Pickunka, VP of Sales at Chemetal, and presented large samples of Chemetal’s ALU designs.

According to Geoff Schaefer, President and Creative Director of Chemetal. “The look is essentially aged metal like you’d see in an old factory – darker, slightly patinaed and gray. The ALU designs are a mood – the material is dipped in a darkening oxide and then hand brushed to create variations that are subtle and linear.” To a certain extent, these designs mimic the look of cold rolled steel, but in a lighter material that’s less expensive and easier to fabricate.

Many Chemetal materials, including the ALU designs, are made in the USA. Chemetal is based in Easthampton, MA, a former mill town about two hours west of Boston. This year the company doubled its footprint, expanding into a now 70,000 foot manufacturing and office space. Even though Chemetal is in a newer space, “we’re very familiar with old factory spaces. We still own and use several in the area for our other businesses,” says Schaefer. “We pull design ideas from them, looking at old industrial freight elevators, factory doors and beat up metal supportive flooring. We recreate some of these looks in sheets of aluminum, brass and copper.”

The ALU designs from Chemetal are part of that creative and fit the desired look of bare metal. Of the three – ALU light, ALU Medium and ALU Dark – Elkus Manfredi preferred a custom ALU design based on ALU Medium. These custom Chemetal pieces, cut-to-size, were to be used as panels in Allsteel workstations. Chemetal worked out the details with Union Office, a Boston- based dealer for Allsteel, and with their fabricator, Pat Andre of Coastal Woodworking in Peabody, MA, who took hundreds of sheets of Chemetal custom ALU and laminated them onto a thin backer to fit as workstation panels.

“We used the ALU product along the major circulation paths on the AllSteel workstation panels in lieu of panel fabric,” states Elizabeth Lowrey. “We were very happy with the material and results. Chemetal was great to help coordinate using their product on the AllSteel workstation panels.”

Chemetal works hard to offer great materials and customer service. It’s a family-owned company in business for over 50 years that’s focused on being one of the world’s largest sources of metal designs and laminates with materials like brushed aluminum, oxidized brass, hpl metals and more. Chemetal makes many original materials in-house – creative with a manufacturing consistency – and sources others from all over the world.

“We were really happy to be part of the New Balance project,” says Schaefer. “We took the whole company to a Red Sox game last year and on the way into Boston pointed out the New Balance building where all the ALU was installed. Everyone – sales, customer service, production guys who made the material – thought it was pretty cool. And they’re right.”

An impressive collection of beautiful, bestselling classic metal designs in HPL, anodized aluminum and more.

Benefits:

• European quality, made in Germany.
• Many design choices that emulate brass, copper bronze and stainless appearance.
• HPL laminate backer offers increased impact resistance.
• Easy to fabricate using woodworking equipment
• Lightweight, apply like traditional laminates.
• Stainless steel options. (special blade needed for cutting).
• Budget brushed aluminum and stainless aluminum options.

Benefits:

• Impressive depth of design, these are rich metals.
• Durable designs
• Sourced in USA.
• Contributes to LEED for recycled content.
• Material without backer can be bent or adhered to substrate for clean edge.
• 2 foot width, 8’ and 10’ length plus custom lengths and sizes.

Benefits:

• Durable anodized aluminum
• Made in USA.
• Cost-effective design material.
• Can be bent or adhered directly to substrate for clean edge.
• Aluminum is a soft metal, fabricated with woodworking equipment
• Contributes to LEED for recycled content.
• Available with low pressure backer or find HPL match in 700 Series.
• 4 foot width, 8’ and 10’ length plus custom lengths and sizes.

The company’s largest intro in recent memory.

Chemetal introduces 24 new designs for 2015, the company’s largest introduction in recent memory. These latest designs span the breadth of Chemetal’s product line, with new designs in almost every product category. The new additions include aged subway tile patinas, glowing mother of pearl-esque aluminums, richly textured HPL metal laminates, and aged brass, copper and steel Architectural Metals in easy to fabricate aluminum.

Chemetal’s new designs are available in standard sheet sizes – 4’ x 8’ and 4’ x 10’, as well as some 2’ x 8’ sizes. Many contribute to LEED with up to 85% recycled content. They can be easily viewed at chemetal.com > Designs > New Designs.

Chemetal “Shark” and “New Designs to Snack on” theme.

To celebrate the new designs at Spring 2015 trade shows, Chemetal created a 10-foot shark and the campaign “New Designs to Snack On.” The Chemetal “Shark” was fabricated using Chemetal #901 Polished Aluminum, a reflective classic Chemetal design, Baltic birch plywood, and a walnut base. Designed by Chemetal with fabrication/design by Rhode Island-based Dorch Design, the Chemetal “Shark” was recently awarded “Outstanding Booth Design” at Globalshop in Las Vegas. The shark can be seen, along with Chemetal’s 24 new designs, at ICFF and NeoCon later this spring.

About Chemetal – Made in the USA

Chemetal is a massive collection of over 200 metal designs ideal for vertical and light duty horizontal use in commercial and residential interiors. Many of the designs are made in the company’s Easthampton, MA, facility. The company’s collection includes brushed aluminums, oxidized brass and copper designs, HPL metal laminates, tinted metals, perforated patterns, and more. Many Chemetal designs contribute to LEED points with up to 85% recycled content, as well as regional credits. For more information, call 800.807.7341 or visit chemetal.com.

Chemetal, Treefrog and InteriorArts

While metal designs and laminates are the core business of Chemetal, the company also offers two other product lines, Treefrog Veneer, a real wood veneer laminate and InteriorArts, an hpl design laminate. Together, these three product lines offer design professionals a complete selection of specialty laminates and building materials. Learn more about them at treefrogveneer.com and ialaminates.com.

Metal designs made in the USA.

At Chemetal, we make many of our metal designs in-house, brushing, grinding, oxidizing and aging metals to create cool metal designs. Besides making us unique, it lets us provide jobs, benefits, bonuses and a workplace to call home for over 40 people.

Chemetal’s in-house production has been on a tear the past few years, constantly producing weathered aluminums and aged brass and copper metal “moods,” hand and machine brushed aluminums, and sublime one of a kind patinas produced with a manufacturing consistency. We recently doubled the size of our Easthampton, Massachusetts headquarters and plant, to over 64,000 square feet, adding production lines and capability.

Chemetal also sources anodized aluminums from producers in the Midwest, bringing coils of consistently colored and durable aluminum to our factory and turning them into sheets goods.

Admittedly, we also source materials from overseas, but focus on finding quality design materials from companies in Germany, Italy and Japan, countries with strong employment laws, benefits and environmental standards.

Polished Aluminum Classics from Chemetal set the stage for the Marc Jacobs Fall collection.

Classic Metals from Chemetal energized the runway at the Marc Jacobs runway show at New York Fashion Week February 14. The polished, mirrored surfaces of Chemetal #901 and #701 were everywhere. They covered the runway floor and seating area benches. The reflective surfaces electrified the Stefan Beckman-designed space, doubling the height of the quilted columns, and gave the jam-packed, thigh-to-thigh celebrity crowd a whiff of mirrors-on-the-floor naughtiness. It was made possible by Chemetal’s substantial inventory, quick turnaround and thoughtful customer service.

New York Times fashion writer Cathy Horyn mused that the cool austerity of the show could be interpreted as a sophisticated 1950’s dressing room, but that she preferred the clinical coolness of the padded walls and mirrored floors, “that pointed to an almost absurd fascination with style,” adding, “it’s a little mental, no?”

Whatever the intent, or interpretation, the show was a big success. And it was big. Set to an overt chorus of Marilyn Manson’s industrial metal chant, “The Beautiful People,” Jacobs strutted 63 different looks onto the runway.

According to The Times, the show – set, lighting, music, stylists etc. was estimated to cost at least $1 million. That averages out to $1750 a second for the 9 minute plus show. Pow.

578, that’s right, 578, 4 x 8 and 4 x 10 foot sheets of Chemetal #901 and #701 were used. It was the perfect material, standard-sized and relatively affordable. As important, it was available, in stock at Chemetal on short notice. But barely.

To make it work, Chemetal suggested that the set builder, Kadan Productions, in NJ, use both #901 and #701. Both designs are very similar in their mirrolike appearance. The difference is that #701 is an HPL laminate, a thin metal foil atop a laminate backer. #901 is a solid piece of .020″ thick anodized aluminum. Each has its benefits, like clean edges and bendability (#901) and laminate installation ease (#701).

In the frenetic world of fashion, little of this mattered. Kadan was famillar with both designs. It all came down to time and inventory.

After an initial order in late January, the project grew. Kadan needed more material, alot more. Chemetal received notice for an additional 400 plus sheet order late Friday, with PO confirmation over the weekend. Chemetal had the material in stock. Early Monday, Chemetal cut #901 sheets from the coil, packed it with remaining #701 sheets and loaded it on a special delivery truck. The show was one week away. The order, or the set, in its final Fashion Week form, may never have happened if not for Chemetal’s expansive inventory and smart thinking.
While Chemetal doesn’t recommend its material for flooring, they understood the nature of the installation. The runway set looked great, in part due to the timeless beauty of Chemetal Classic Metals.

When asked about his fashion designs for this show, Marc Jacobs, according to Women’s Wear Daily, said, “I thought about all the things I’ve done in the past, and perennially loved. That’s my description of classic.” So to with Classic Metals from Chemetal.

Custom copper panels featured in Hervé Léger Show during Fashion Week.