Welcome to floor trends, your repurposed, re-formatted and re-dedicated resource for information and innovation driving the floor covering industry!

This is not just some simple cosmetic update, a new coat of paint on a rusty old gate; this is a top-to-bottom overall, a stripping down of the machine to the proverbial last bolt to see what’s worked, what hasn’t and what we can do to build a better mousetrap.

The result is floor trends, the premier B2B publication for the floor covering industry. Our mission is our name: to discern, discover and deliver the latest design trends and style-shaping influences impacting the industry in both the commercial and residential sectors. So much is made of what’s hot today that it’s been far too easy to forget to keep an eye on what will be standing center stage tomorrow.

Not anymore. With a bevy of new content – Q&A interviews with designers, specifiers and other market makers (page 28); new columnists and contributors (including Lew Migliore, featured this month on page 40); our new “Profiles in Success” segment (page 14) and more – we’re looking to advance the notion of the floor covering industry as a synergistic entity in which every segment affects the rest, influencing – and being influenced by – each other now and in the future, collectively growing, expanding and moving forward.

And that growth is global, its impact world-wide. That’s one reason we dropped the National from our name; the influences driving style and design in flooring come from all corners of the globe, from the fashion trends of Paris to the rough-hewn textures of the Australian Outback. People want what they want; the only constant is that their tastes will continue to change.

Speaking of tastes, more and more we’re being asked to expand our digital content, to provide a more-varied platter of editorial offerings. So we’re doing just that, launching everything from podcast interviews and video profiles to digital-edition exclusive features – check out Ray Thompson and our NeoCon 2012 show coverage – and next-gen extras like floor trends + (page 8). It’s the information you want, but now it’s the way you want it, however that may be. And lest I forget, we’ve also moved to new digital digs: www.floortrendsmag.com.

floor trends is here now, and always with an eye on the future. We know there’s still a bit of fine-tuning to do – and if you have some ideas, we’d love to hear them – but we’re confident that, when it comes to divining the direction the industry is going, we’re making floor trends your business solution.