Our annual pilgrimage to the home of modern kitchen design

We’ll admit – our annual trip to the Häcker factory in Germany is always a hotly-anticipated item on our yearly calendar here at Kitchen Design Centre. Like many creative service sectors, kitchen design has always been a very fast-moving industry, so the trip is obviously important to us as designers, as it provides us with a valuable opportunity to keep our knowledge and skills sharp when it comes to the latest trends and technologies in kitchen design. That way, we can always be sure we’re delivering the very best service to you, our customers. What’s more, it’s always fascinating seeing what the latest trends have in store!

Luxurious finishes and dark, opulent colours

If you’ve ever taken the opportunity to visit us in one of our designer kitchen showrooms across the North West, you’ll probably have heard of Häcker. The company is one of the most prestigious manufacturers of kitchen furniture in the world, and a key supplier of ours at Kitchen Design Centre. Häcker’s two ranges include ‘Classic’ and ‘systemat’, and our designers have overseen their installation in some truly stunning customer kitchens.

Since our designers make this pilgrimage every year, we’ve naturally come to expect big things, and we’re pleased to say we weren’t disappointed! In the tranquil little town of Rödinghausen, home of Häcker kitchens, there were some fantastic new displays for our designers to explore. Some of the most recent emerging trends were defined by high-quality materials such as glass and ceramic, which were used to create opulent and brilliantly moody designs. We have to say, we were most taken with the use of glass in particular. The material conveys a beautifully luxurious sense on almost everything it touches.

In fact, black was another common trend amongst the designs we saw. Whether it was being used to create a classy, contemporary effect, or being used to create striking dramatic contrasts, we found ourselves falling in love with black all over again. We particularly loved the most creative uses of it – there were lots of overlays in texture for us to explore, which gave many of the displays a wonderfully tactile feel.

The newest innovation: TOUCH-free anti-fingerprint surfaces

Many of the new designs also showcased the cutting-edge TOUCHfree surface sealing. Essentially, it’s a highly-effective anti-fingerprint coating which ensures that their stunning textured designs always stay pristine – even with all the daily usage it would endure from the busiest of family kitchens. Personally, we think it’s likely to be very popular with our customers here at Kitchen Design Centre. As any parent or pet owner knows, one of the biggest challenges with contemporary kitchens can often be to keep them clean!

There’s lots more from Germany, of course, but if we went into exhaustive detail you’d be here forever! As always, we got plenty of inspiration from our Häcker visit, so if you want to find out how we’re putting it into practice, why not pay a visit to one of our designer kitchen showrooms? We’ve got locations in Blackburn, Manchester and Barrowford, so wherever you live in the North West you’ve never got far to go before you can sit down and have a chat with one of our friendly, talented designers, every one of whom is deeply passionate about helping you to make your dream kitchen a reality!