As most of you already know, I’m a web developer. Web developers are the people responsible for implimenting the designs of web designers, and hooking them to their “back-ends” (databases, servers, etc.).

This morning I launched www.PerformanceDesign.com, the latest site to be added to my portfolio.

Performance Design is a company that contracts the expertise of personnel and availability of raw materials from my employer: Lifetime Products. Their product line focuses on “Park quality equipoment for your backyard.” After having seen some of their prototypes, all I can says is “wow!” These are playsets like you’ve never imagined!

There are basically three types of playsets: wood, metal, and plastic.

• Wood must be treated to prevent (read: slow the progression of) rot, must be painted or stained regularly, and runs the risks of developing slivers. Additionally, most wood is treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which contains arsenic which can cause cancer¹.
• Plastic (in its various forms) can fade, be brittle, or even be tied to causing cancer if it is of the PVC variety^{2, 3, 4}. Performance Design uses blow-molded polyethylene, a plastic-like material that is light-weight, strong, durable, stain-resistant, fade-resistant, chip-resistant, and won’t warp or crack like other plastics.
• Metal has always been the strongest, metal rusts, in the past paints on metals have contained lead, and paint doesn’t “stick” to metal very well. Performance Design’s Powder Coating process addresses those concerns. Basically, powder coating is a cool process where “paint” is electrostatically “painted” on a metal piece, then run through a furnace to its melting point, this physically bonds the (now liquid) powder to the metal, making it hard to tell where the metal stops and the coating starts.

I want one… uh, for the kids…