Formica

Formica History

Formica Limited creates beautiful and useful surfaces for many diverse environments and applications. It is the market leader and only manufacturer of High Pressure Laminate (HPL) in the UK, as well as being a manufacturer of a wide range of other interior surfacing materials.

Formica® laminate is the ‘original’, and 90 years of innovation and manufacture was celebrated in October 2003. The company has developed an unrivalled expertise, which ensures quality, reliability and products that are fit for purpose. Working closely with architects, designers and specifiers, the company is ideally placed to offer innovative new products and decors which respond to market needs and complement current design trends.

Formica® HPL was invented in 1913 by two electrical engineers in the USA, Herbert A. Faber and Daniel J. O’Conor, who were searching for a substitute for the mineral substance ‘mica’ to use as an insulating material, hence this new man-made material was born, for ‘mica’. In essence the material created was made of layers of special paper, impregnated with resin and bonded under high pressure and temperature.

In 1927, the company began lithographing decorative images onto the sheets of laminate they produced, introducing a new decorative surfacing product.

By the 1930s world-renowned artists and architects began to recognise the design potential of the material. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the baby boom in the USA and the rebuilding of Europe helped create a need for modern, cost-effective materials. Formica laminate with its new variety of colours and patterns was ideal.

The products entered the European market in 1946. The company still leads the way in the latest innovations in laminate, with regular introductions of new textures, patterns and finishes, as well as offering a range of other complementary surfacing materials in its portfolio.

Formica Corporation is a global leader and Formica is recognised as a global brand, with manufacturing, distribution and sales facilities worldwide.