What if whiteboards were no longer white? What if they were emblazoned with company logos, blended in with the pattern of a wall, or carried the latest trend in animal print? Markerboard manufacturers are looking at Corning® Gorilla® Glass as a solution for aesthetically pleasing and customizable markerboards.

“Traditional markerboards are heavy, easily stained and damaged, and require special magnets due to their thickness,” said Hank Dunnenberger, business director for Corning Advanced Laminates.

Gorilla Glass not only allows markerboard and interior designers to create and use boards that are attractive and enhance the design of a space, but also solves the functional issues common to customary whiteboard materials, such as porcelain-on-steel, melamine, or soda-lime glass:

• Gorilla Glass is thin and light – Traditional materials make markerboards heavy. Even the soda-lime glass boards are weighty because the glass has to be thick to be durable. The heft makes these boards expensive to ship and install and, in the case of soda-lime glass boards, the thickness causes parallax – or a double image –when viewed from the side. Gorilla Glass boards are lighter, less expensive to transport and mount, and – since Gorilla Glass is as strong as soda-lime two to three times as thick – do not result in visual distortion.
• Gorilla Glass resists stains – Porcelain-on-steel and melamine are prone to stains. Gorilla Glass is non-absorptive – making it stain resistant. Since it’s non-absorptive, Gorilla Glass allows typical whiteboard users to write with high pigment (vibrant) markers, which are off limits with porcelain and melamine. Essentially, any marker is removable from Gorilla Glass with typical glass or markerboard cleaning products.
• Gorilla Glass is tough – Soda-lime glass markerboards are easily scratched when erased. The damage resistance of Gorilla Glass lessens this problem dramatically, increasing the useful life of the board.
• Gorilla Glass is easy to use with accessories – Markerboards made of conventional materials have to be used in conjunction with rare earth magnets due to the thickness of the board. These magnets are extremely strong, can’t be pulled apart by a person once they touch each other, and can interfere with cell phone signals. The thinness of a Gorilla Glass markerboard allows it to be used with traditional magnets.

Corning continues to find applications for Gorilla Glass to answer customer needs. Today, it’s markerboards. In the future, it may be walls of glass, or any number of the ideas seen in Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” video. “Corning is changing the way the world thinks about glass by continually improving the way people communicate, manage information, and interact – and we see a bright future in what glass can do,” said Dave Loeber, business director for Corning® Gorilla® Glass for Large Cover Applications.