Sarreid Taps 3D Technology Potential with Live Furnish

Furniture World News Desk on 9/29/2021

Sarreid recently announced that it has partnered with image production platform company Live Furnish to produce high-quality, photo realistic silhouettes and room scenes that are helping the manufacturer build out its image library, while curbing marketing costs and speeding time to market with new products.

Hailed as an industry disrupter, Winston-Salem-based Live Furnish helps marketing pros with no 3D background produce beautiful content for websites, social media, public relations, sales presentations, and other key marketing tools like catalogs and look books, in-house, cost-effectively and with full creative control. Indeed, according to co-founder Preet Sahil Singh—a graphics engineer and former brand manager at the virtual reality division of Dassault Systemes—Live Furnish simplifies 3D technology to the point that anyone with basic knowledge of Photoshop and image editing can begin effectively utilizing the platform with less than a single day of training.

“There’s been lots of industry chatter about the whiz-bang possibilities of 3D technology, most of it focused on consumer-facing websites,” says Brad Cates, chief executive officer at Sarreid. “For a long time, we thought the ability to engage shoppers by turning product from this angle or that would be a nice-to-have parlor trick, and an expensive one at that, but it wasn’t until we were approached by Live Furnish that we began to believe that 3D technology might have far greater potential for a better-end manufacturer like Sarreid.”

Cates is quick to note that he was a skeptic about the usefulness and cost-effectiveness of 3D technology. “Like many executives in my position, I was fielding inquiries from companies pushing the technology on the regular. Live Furnish got my attention because Preet absolutely blew me away in the first few minutes of conversation with his understanding of what we’re trying to achieve here at Sarreid. He showed me a few sample images, and I then challenged his team by selecting three of our toughest products to replicate: A bed, a leather sofa, and a dresser, all with the kind of complex, multi-layer, broken/chippy finishes that have set our company apart in the marketplace.”

A self-described math geek with a publishing background who also happens to be trained as a fine artist, Cates admits he is an extremely tough critic when it comes to graphics. “Sarreid has long been known for deep, rich, and complex finishes, leathers, and mixed materials, all of which have proven historically challenging for 3D technology which tended to turn accurate, but flat, lifeless renderings. Yet, the first round of images we got back from Live Furnish were so close to spot-on it was scary. As we’ve continued to work together in collaboration and as a team, the images of our products have gotten so good that they literally fooled my own wife. I had my laptop open on our dining room table, and she asked, ‘When did you go back into the studio?’”

Now and in the Future

While the executive describes Sarreid in the “play and learning” phase of its relationship with Live Furnish, he says the cost-savings Sarreid has already realized have been significant and immediate. “Based here in Wilson, NC, the closest first-class furniture photography studio is some two hours away in High Point. That means we’ve historically had to move products to High Point to shoot, risk damage in the process, and devote considerable resources out of the office and warehouse here in talent, time, and equipment.

“Now, our internal graphic artist can put together a stunning room scene in less than 20 minutes, and I can look over his shoulder and say, ‘Change the light here, remove that rug, add a plant there, take the camera up three feet, or change the overall dimensions.’ This new partnership enables us to take studio time and costs to zero, while still beautifully maintaining the ethos that is Sarreid. The possibilities of what we can do internally now are near infinite and we are truly blurring the line between what’s ‘real,’ and images of shelter-magazine quality that have been created entirely in the digital realm.”

Meanwhile, traffic on the company’s website, Sarreid.com, has continued to uptick, “while still maintaining the high bar for content and engagement that we’ve set for ourselves. Even more exciting, is our newly acquired ability to create images from little more than a CAD drawing and a master finish panel,” he says.

“Look, nobody loves Market more than our team, and we intend to always show in High Point, but at the same time, we are constantly looking for the newest, and fastest way to get our products into the hands of dealers and designers,” Cates shares. “We’re already no longer beholden to introducing products during the traditional Market dates and we have been committed to showing our customers new and in-stock goods the minute they land in Wilson since the start of the pandemic. Now, because we have been able to move quickly in adopting this new technology, our customers can see new product before a sample is ever made and shipped here. We’re also able to share and collaborate with dealers and designers on what’s coming in an entirely new way, and frankly, we’re already selling products that no one has ever seen beyond these images.”

In fact, Cates says that in the long term, he foresees a day “when a designer can approach their Sarreid rep and say, ‘I’m working on a project and need images for my presentation to the client.’ Using the Live Furnish platform, our reps will be able to add an entirely new level of service to what they already provide, efficiently sharing with clients and customers images of the extraordinary products they are specifying from our line.”

A New Reality

“We know brands like Sarreid are becoming more and more digital, and the importance of their digital presence is slowly becoming just as important, if not more, than their physical presence,” Singh says. “That is the reality in which we live today. But project just five or ten years down the road, and it’s going to become even more important because the world is moving in that direction. Sarreid understands that now is the optimal time to create their digital identity, and that to create that digital identity, they must put out high-quality content consistently with full creative control. Until now, that’s been the blockage in the pipeline, but using our toolbox, they are finding they can produce it in-house quickly and at an acceptable cost.”

About Sarreid Ltd

Based in Wilson, North Carolina, we have long made it our business to traverse the globe, seeking out master craftspeople to source the extraordinary and one-of-a-kind. Indeed, for more than half a century, tastemakers, designers, builders and architects have turned to Sarreid for the exceptional—starting with the statement-making decorative accessories and objects d’ art upon which our company was built—to our ever-growing collection of luxurious furnishings for projects of every scale. For more information, visit sarreid.com.

About Live Furnish

Live Furnish creates an accessible, 3D experience that cuts down on the wastefulness of ordering samples that may never make it to the product development stage.

Experience the speed and flexibility of interactive 3D photography, whether you need product renderings, the ideal lifestyle setting, or anything in between. Create photorealistic imagery with no 3D experience required. For more information, visit livefurnish.com.