The event in late January saw trends including high quality, a “greater sense of well-being” and sustainability.
The show, which took place from 28 to 31 January and included the Remanexpo product group, offered a “platform for new products and trends in the paper, stationery and office supplies sector”, according to organisers Messe Frankfurt, with 1,525 exhibitors from 58 countries demonstrating “innovations” for both “the visionary office” and “the stationery trends”, and “what the future has in store both for the modern office and for the paper and stationery needs of private individuals”.
The first trend earmarked was a “colourful work-environment with high-quality products for the home office”, where “the lines between work and home become blurred” and the working environment “becomes personalised and more colourful” with products featuring “high-quality workmanship” also seeing “increasing demand”.
The second was products for a “greater sense of well-being at the office”, as “people spend most of their daytime hours in the workplace”, and “the desire for a greater sense of well-being in the everyday life of the office is increasing”. Third was that sustainability continues to establish itself as a persistent trend”, having been a “major theme at Paperworld for many years” as “it is demanded by a great many customers and, indeed, offered by as many companies”.
Sustainability in this sense reflected both “materials used” and the “manufacturing process”, and it “plays a major role and has established itself as a persistent trend for the long term”, as products “need to be seen to be sustainable” and this “clearly visible sustainability combines with simple, elegant design to create high-quality office accessories”.
Another trend was products that “bring together the traditional offline world of paper, office supplies and writing materials with digital possibilities”, neatly linked to the final trend, that there is “no such thing as the paperless office”. On this point, the organisers noted that “increasing digitalisation must not be confused” with the arrival of the paperless office, exhibitors seeing “consistent realisation” of this as “something that is a long way in the future, if not an unattainable utopia”.
Even though “more and more documents are being digitally archived, in the vast majority of cases, the original documents exist as pieces of paper”. Michael Reichold, Director of Paperworld, commented that “we are delighted that so many exhibitors use Paperworld as a shop window in which to display their innovations and to introduce their products to a broad audience for the first time”.
Next year’s show will take place from 27 to 30 January in Frankfurt, and The Recycler recently reported that this year’s show provided a “high degree of satisfaction” to both exhibitors and visitors. You can read The Recycler’s reports from Remanexpo’s four days here, here, here and here, while our final report was published in the recently-released issue 292.