Secondly, the use of only one font (Arial, presumably) does not provide variety and contrast which is essential in making copies not only come out as interesting but also supportive of the variety of products being promoted.

Thirdly, the use of only blue color for the text font all the way again does not provide variety and relief from the monotonous color set on the same white background.

Finally, the website could gain a lot of improvement with some layout redesign. Some boxes or lines to separate sections and photos in each section will display a more interesting and informative homepage. Line and letter spacing (particularly in the Technical Specs page and others) could also stand some adjustments in order to avoid visual disorientation for lack of overall uniformity or consistency.

That being said, the website does contain a very essential info on the product that is worth bragging about because of its versatility. Too bad the website, at first glance, does not help support that quality. In fact, the first impression that any well-experienced graphic artist would say is that the company belongs to a Chinese owner or founder. What with the predominantly red and yellow colors splashed on the masthead. Furthermore, the diamond line drawing is historically and generally connected to a Chinese tool manufacturer with the same name.

The video provides some dynamism and appeal to the otherwise static homepage. More video clips could help make the other pages worth visiting and even referring to friends and other parties. 

But foam can also be hard, like bagels. Softness or hardness, together with weight, determines the quality of foam. Technical standards provide manufacturers a measure of the quality of foam. Just because a particular kind of foam is soft does not mean it is of good quality. The weight, aside from the softness, determines how foam performs. It is a simple measure of how much foam is contained and has an affect on the strength or durability of the end material.

As Dyman explains it, cheap foam can be made soft or hard; but it will remain of low quality. The weight or density of the foam is a rough measure of the quality of foam as we notice in terms of how heavy good foam is compared to the cheap kind. Likewise, we are informed that color has nothing to do with the quality of the foam. The color is merely added to distinguish between different types and densities of the foam.

Knowing the above basic info about foam will help buyers and users have better judgment when choosing what type of foam to purchase in the future. They will no longer be mere unconcerned or unaware users of foam, which we take for granted often as it is hidden from our sight, but discriminating and money-savvy consumers.

From its common application for furniture and bedding, foam is also used in many sporting goods, transport vehicles as well as in insulation for various installations. It is because of this invisible nature of foam that makes it not as appreciated a material as others such as leather, fabric or plastic. Much like our intestines or our lungs which we do not see and often forget is always there working for us, we look at foam as a forgettable matter until we need to buy it and use it for some valuable domestic or business project.

Dyman Foam must be aware of this fact; however, it seems the company has not overcome that tendency to look at foam as something better unseen and not distracting our clean view of life. Yet, owing to its versatility, it can be formed into so many ways or utilized for a millions purposes. It comes as a surprise that they have not exploited this versatility and highlighted it in their website. It appears as if they consider foam as nothing else but a lot of air not worth showing off as a valuable tool for modern living.

The point is this: Foam, whether open-cell or closed-cell, possesses a unique texture which can be highlighted to advertise its latent beauty. Meaning to say, foam should not only be presented in its various custom-cut product forms but also in its artistic, textural aspect which gives it its softness, compressibility and durability as much as silk is valued for its smoothness, sheen and strength.

A photographer would take great macroscopic pictures of sea foam and make us wonder at the way Nature shows beauty within its many levels of perspective, from the tiny size to the galactic magnitude. But industrial foam (polyol, TDI and air), farfetched as it may appear, is essentially frozen or hardened sea foam (salt water and air) on which we sit and lie, to lull us into a comfortable sleep or put us into work mode. Perhaps, Dyman then should post more photos of foam in its many forms and perspectives in order to make more people aware of what it really is, not just in the manufacturing point of view, but from the view of the end-user, from the inside to the outside.

The seriousness of business can always be coupled and enhanced with the beauty and naturalness of art, as long as one knows how to balance the two to come up with an appealing presentation of the technical, functional and aesthetic worth of a product.

In ancient times and even at the present, cotton, kapok and other cushioning materials have provided the function that foam now efficiently provides. However, due to their setbacks and difficulty to source out, these traditional raw materials have given way to the modern industrial foam we have learned to accept as the be-all and end-all for cushion and insulation purposes. Cotton, within a short period, loses its bounce. It is not as easily washable as other materials. It also has the tendency to attract a lot of microorganisms and produce unpleasant smell especially when it absorbs moisture.

Foam, unlike those materials mentioned above, can be washed and even vacuumed without destroying its quality. It can also be recycled, cut and reused for other purposes as well. Organic materials have the advantage of being biodegradable; whereas foam may pose a hazard to the environment when not properly disposed of. Other than this and some other disadvantages of foam (it can also be quite a challenge to clean big foams), foam is still the choice of many people in our highly industrialized, modern world.

Softness and hardness then are not mere physical qualities of foam but also a description of its performance in terms of dynamic application as well as versatility in terms of recycling (soft or easy to cut) and cleaning (not so “hard” to wash and vacuum).

Certain new foam products now also have the ability to “remember” the user’s body form and has great application for bedding use, as pillows and seat cushion. The quality of softness and hardness, in short, has been augmented with the ability to retain a shape while not losing its original softness/hardness. A very practical and healthful benefit, as claimed.

So, foam has come a long way to becoming not merely a good substitute for traditional agricultural products but as a way to make life more comfortable and efficient. The question of whether we are less becoming natural or organic in the process -- and, therefore, less balanced with Nature -- is an entirely different matter altogether. Landor Associates Dyman Foam

THE QUALITY OF FOAM IS MEASURED BY THE WEIGHT OF THE FOAM

Landor Associates Dyman Foam - The heavier the foam, the better the quality. Going hand in hand with this is that the heavier the foam (i.e. the better the quality) the more expensive it is BUT the longer it will last. The confusing thing about foam that people do not know is that foam can be made to varying hardness's – all with the same weight. This means, that a high quality foam (for example) can be made to feel very soft and it can also be made to feel very hard (plus any variance in between). Similarly, a low quality foam can be made to feel soft or hard. This is where the confusion lies with most people. Over the years, as foam has become more and more expensive and retailers have pressured manufacturers to reduce prices to compete with imports, foams have been developed of lesser quality but higher hardness (and substituted for the better quality foams).

The wash up of this is that the general public has developed a perception that good foam is hard foam and that soft foam is low quality foam. This perception is 100% wrong. A high quality foam can be very soft and, on the "flip side," a poor quality foam can be hard. To try to "right the wrong" (so to speak) the Foam Industry introduced a coding system that enables the end user to know exactly the type of foam they are getting which also enables them to be able to compare "apples with apples" when assessing value for money. The foam Industry, knowing that the two crucial factors determining the quality of any particular foam are weight and hardness, introduced a code system that advised exactly those things. Let's look at those two critical factors:-

Weight

The weight of foam is measured by kilograms per cubic meter. A block of foam measuring 1 meter x 1 meter x 1 meter (a cubic meter) is weighed and the weight registered becomes the first part of the code. For example if a cubic meter of a particular type of foam is weighed and it weighs 23 kilograms then the first part of its code is 23. If it weighed 15 kilograms then the first part of the code would be 15. And so on across all the different foams.

Hardness

The second crucial measurement of foam is hardness. Hardness of foam is measured in Newton 's. What a Newton is exactly isn't all that relevant other than that it is a measurement of force. The force it measures is the force required to compress a foam to 40% of its thickness when it is cut to 100mm thick. Obviously a soft foam would take only a little force and a firm foam would require a lot more. As an average, a middle hardness foam requires 130 Newton's of force to compress it to 40% of it's height at 100mm. Soft foams can require as little as 40 Newton's, whilst some very firm foams can require up to 500 Newton's. When the force to compress the foam is measured it forms the second part of the code that determines the type of foam. If the force taken is 100 then the second part of the code is 100, if it is 40 then the second part is 40 – and so on. By adding the two measurements (weight and force) together the code is complete. A foam that weighs 23 kilograms per cubic meter and requires a force of 130 Newton 's to compress it to 40% of its original height therefore has a code of 23/130. A foam that weighs 15 kilograms per cubic meter and requires a force of 100 Newton 's to compress it to 40% of its original height therefore has a code of 15/100. A foam that weighs 35 kilograms per cubic meter and requires a force of 130 Newton 's to compress it to 40% of its original height therefore has a code of 35/130. A foam that weighs 15 kilograms per cubic meter and requires a force of 60 Newton 's to compress it to 40% of its original height therefore has a code of 15/60. A foam that weighs 25 kilograms per cubic meter and requires a force of 60 Newton 's to compress it to 40% of its original height therefore has a code of 25/60. And so on. (note 23/130 & 35/130 have the same hardness but 23/130 weighs much, much less. This would mean they felt the same but the 23/130 wouldn't last as long as 35/130 because it has less weight. Similarly the 25/60 & 15/60). It becomes very simple then to see exactly what you are getting in both the crucial areas of foam quality – weight (number 1) and hardness (number 2). In Australia the lowest density (weight) foam made is 15 kilograms per cubic meter and the average density of foam sold is around 19 kilograms per cubic meter. Because price is such an important issue in the Furniture Industry (because of competition internally and imports externally) many manufacturers are using more and more low quality foam. (Fifteen years ago the average density sold was about 24 kilograms per cubic meter – today it is 19 kilograms per cubic meter). This is a big pity – however a sign of the times. If a compromise has to be made on quality in a lounge it should not be on the seating. The seat of a lounge carries around 80% of a person's weight whilst the back and arms carry the rest (20%). It is logical therefore that if a compromise has to be made it should be on the back foam and arm foams – the less the load carry the less the weight of foam required. Seating foam should be no less than 30 kgs per cubic metre - however we are in a position where we supply to demand and at certain price points. The result of this is that much seating foam used is far less in weight than 30 kgs/M 3. Low density seating if used everyday not only will not last but cannot last. Generally, back foam should be around 45 – 80 in hardness (regardless of the weight) and seat foam around 100 to 140 in hardness and be a minimum of 100mm thick. As the thickness reduces the hardness needs to be increasedand also (generally) so does the weight. Foam has an enormous variety of uses. These include Furniture & Bedding, sporting, transport, packaging, insulation and many others. Foam can also be made in a wide variety of weights and hardness's from around 15/45 through to 50/500 – therefore a foam for every application!!!!!!! Just remember that weight is quality.High weight foams (even of low hardness) last longer than low weight foams (even of high hardness) under the same usage. As a general rule of "thumb" if you had two foams of the SAME hardness but one was (say) 35 Kgs/M3 and the other was (say) 15 Kgs/M3, the heavier foam would deteriorate by 10% in the first year and the lighter foam would deteriorate by over 50% - that is the difference. Weight is quality – not hardness. Choose wisely – choose heavy.

Foam Chemical Process

Flexible Polyurethane Foam (foam) is formed by a reaction of liquid chemicals when mixed together. Similar to the making of bread, when the ingredients (chemicals) are mixed in the correct proportion they react and expand. Generally the expansion rate is about 40 – 1 (meaning 25mm of the correct chemical mix will expand to about a meter of solid foam – or in the old scale 1 inch makes 40 inches). Colour is added to the mix of chemicals at the start of the process so that the different types/densities can be distinguished when being used and sold. If colour wasn't added all the foams would be white – regardless of density/type. There are two basic ways of mixing the chemicals together – one is a line machine and the other is a box machine. The line machineis the "mass production" method where chemicals are mixed and pumped onto a moving conveyer system which allows for long "pours" to be made – from which, at the end of the conveyer, smaller, more easily usable sized blocks are cut (roughly 2 meters square) The box machineis a single block method where chemicals are mixed and pumped into a "box" roughly 2 meters square. It is far more cost efficient to make foam on the line machine for major use foams. For specialty grades it is better for the box machine to be used because small quantities can be made. There are two main chemicals used in the making of foam, namely polyol and TDI. These are mixed with various catalysts, water and blowing agents to cause the required reaction. The mix of these chemicals determines the type of foam that results. From the time the chemicals are mixed together to when they reach the full height of the reaction takes only a few minutes - however the reaction continues to generate heat for several hours after that and reaches its hottest about four hours after the initial reaction. Although the foam can be moved and stored within minutes of "forming" it cannot be processed for approximately 12 hours. Because colour is an additive which brings no features to the foam other than easy identification, it obviously means that it is not relevant to the performance of the foam. The two things that are important to the performance of foam are WEIGHT (referred to as density) and HARDNESS.

Landor Associates Dyman Foams is a privately owned Queensland born and bred Company established in 1992. All current operations are undertaken from our 6000 M2 building at 105 Robinson Road Geebung Brisbane. Dyman Foams proudly employs 50 Queenslanders.

Due to the diversity of our markets and products Dyman Foams also trades under the names Foamworld, Uptown Furniture and Factory Direct Furniture.

The primary business of Dyman Foams is foam conversion to the Domestic and Commercial Furniture Industry, to the Bedding Industry, to the Transport Industry, to the Sporting and Leisure Industry, to the Packaging Industry and to the Construction Industry. With over 40 different foams in standard and premium grades, both flame retardant and non-flame retardant, Dyman Foams has the ability to supply any foam requirements to any market.

When this broad spread of product is coupled with state of the art computerized and manual cutting equipment operated by the most experienced staff in the Industry, Landor Associates Dyman Foams can proudly say we are the front runners in foam Conversion in Queensland and have been for over a decade.

In 1995 Dyman Foams made a decision to vertically integrate its supply chain and began making Furniture for the local domestic and commercial markets. Some 16 years later we are now one of the leading Furniture Manufacturers in Queensland trading under the name Uptown Furniture manufacturing upholstered lounge furniture from chairs through sofas and sofa beds to corner suites and chaise lounges. As a leading manufacturer we guarantee we use all the best materials from start to finish and, where at all possible, the greenest materials available. Our timber is from sustainable forests and is void of knots and weak points and all frames are glued as well as nailed. All cross sections are braced for added strength. The foams in all our lounges are 35 density premium foams in the seats and 25 - 30 density foams elsewhere including the backs, arms and outbacks. All foams are endorsed by the Asthma Foundation and are treated for dust mites and other bugs. Where fibre is used the fibre is hollow fill siliconised fibre which is expanded and produced by ourselves through modern computerized precision machinery. The cushion support system we use is Black Cat Webbing which is recognized as Industry best. Whilst fabrics are an individual choice we ensure fabric selection is suited to the application. Our lounges are cut and sewn by the most experienced operators in the Industry and all other processes such as framing and upholstery are performed by vastly experienced operators using the best equipment available.

In 2009 Dyman Foams, due to the lack of support for local manufacturers by retailers in general, decided to again vertically integrate its supply chain further and, as a consequence, started retailing under the Factory Direct Furniture banner. This outlet sells all products manufactured by Uptown Furniture as well as, where possible, supporting other local manufacturers.

The Managing Director of Dyman Foams, Kevin Feldman, has been a long time servant of the Furniture Industry Association and was last year granted Life Membership. Kevin has been a Director of the Queensland Industry Association for over 25 years - 6 as President. In that time he has also served for over 10 years on the National Body.

Dyman Foams is a respected Queensland Company, employing Queenslanders and making quality products for the local market. At the same time Landor Associates Dyman Foams has never lost sight of its responsibility to the Industry nor to the community and this has been demonstrated over time.

The foundation of our Company is our people - measured by our products and the respect we have from our peers. We are proud of our Company, our products and our achievements.