Bioinorganic chemistry inspiring the development of new materials: The large body of work resulting of ca. four decades of intensive research in the bioinorganic field has given substantial answers about the modus operandi of enzymes and other bio-relevant molecules. We take advantage of two typically bioinorganic approaches, namely biomodeling and biomimicking as tools for the development of molecule-based materials. Archetypes to model new materials: Interest in metal-containing soft materials (McSM) has increased due to applications towards molecular electronics and magnetic films. These materials are usually composed of an organic fragment attached to a ligand capable of coordinating metals. Ligands such as terpy and bzimpy and alkylpyridyls have been used to append different groups, thus forming building blocks for molecular transistors, polymers, plastics and for sensing purposes, whereas asymmetric tridentate ligands remain largely unexplored. The design of soft materials based on these ligands leads to well defined geometries and unique physical properties associated with dissimilar donor sets, and upon metallation are expected to allow for some control over the behavior of the final complexes. We use modeling to design and predict geometrical, spectroscopic, redox, and magnetic properties in McSM of waxy and oily constitution. We have published an account on this approach for cobalt-based liquid crystals and in this meeting, unpublished results pertaining iron-, copper-, and nickel-based materials would be presented. Low symmetry in nature “inspiring” molecular switches. We have shown that ligand design leads to five-coordinate Fe(III) species with enhanced redox cycling of the phenoxyl radical process. This process is usually irreversible in octahedral complexes. In this meeting we would present results towards ligand design with more delocalized ?-electrons, as well as efforts toward the development of a general platform for surface deposition and film formation of these materials.