During the Salone del Mobile design fair in Milan earlier this year, six young designers were selected by the talent scout team ”Salone Satellite”. The aim was to help them gain international visibility and direct contact with manufacturers and professionals in the furnishing industry.

To channel their creativity and design abilities into the world of commerce, the Milanese department store ”la Rinascente”, teams up and as from today you can buy some of the young designers products at the Design Supermarket of the Milanese department store, an impressive space and historic bastion of design, in the middle of Milan.

On display is a selection of lamps, vases, chairs and coffee tables, not to mention a wooden coffeemaker without a handle and a collection of fabrics and pillows that draw inspiration from Adinkra symbols and Ghanian proverbs. However, if you are not on your way to Milan, you can read and see all about their interesting designs here:

Xuberance Studio (China), winner of winner of the 2015 SaloneSatellite Award
The lighting series Nebulae was inspired by the cloud patterns from stone sculptures in the ancient Chinese royal garden. Xuberance designers then extracted the traditional pattern and translated it into a 3D modeling language. It’s a re-interpretation of the rich Chinese art culture using the cutting-edge sculpturing technologies. While modeling, the designers also combined their visual experience of observing the ever-changing clouds from flying by the airplane. It is an innovative design of inheriting the cultural heritage using advanced modern techniques.

KIMU LAB (Taiwan)
These table lamps stand out because of the simplicity of their lines and they remind us of traditional Chinese paper lanterns. The aim is to combine the complexity of the manufacturing process with ‘light’ forms and shapes and at the same time blending western and oriental styles. They are extremely flexible and the light given off can be adjusted by merely pulling the paper shading up or down switching from direct spotlight to soft light making them so perfectly adaptable to a variety of environments and ambiences.

Robert Van Embricqs (Netherlands)
“What could you add to an existing piece of art?” With that notion in mind as a jumping-off point, the newest addition to the line is the Rising Shell, presented at thr Salone Satellite 2015 for the first time, this piece brings the Rising principle to the next level. If the shell isn’t being used, it can be seamlessly folded back as a flat object with the dimensions of L 390 mm x W 405 mm. Only to have it open and rise up like a budding flower when it’s needed again.Constructed with laminated bamboo beams of only 18 mm thick that guarantee firmness and durability.

AMWA Designs (Great Britain)
The concrete bowl of this coffee table is inspired by the Asanka – a traditional shallow clay bowl used to blend and grind food in Ghana and many other parts of West Africa. The table’s wooden base is inspired by the Adinkra symbol Adinkrahene. It is a symbol, which is regarded as the chief of all the Adinkra symbols. The sand, which you see as part of the display, pays homage to the earth rich red laterite soil of Ghana. AMWA Designs invites you to display and fill the table with that which is also close to your heart.

Francesco Fusillo (Italy)
LUNIKA 360 is the latest moka designed by Francesco Fusillo, who pushed his creativity to conceive a revolutionary shape: this product has no handle! The extremely peculiar line of Lunika 360 allows an easy and secure grip onto the body, improving the control of the coffee stream from the coffee maker to your cup while pouring.

The guiding concept in the re-design of Lunika Coffee Maker is the one of finding a compromise between the rational of shapes without altering the symbolic iconographic value of the object. This concept is not only been proposed for a mere formal or re-designing reason but it is due to an accurate and attentive observation of the product. Consequently, it has be decided to intervene with only small modifications that, at the same time, will simplify the shapes in order to reduce complexity of molding and costs. For example, the zippers on the container, which are usually used in cafeterias, have been eliminated.

The chosen material is the one of wood, both because of its quality of being a bad conductor of heat, and for its natural beauty. It has been decided to make the covers 10 mm thicker and so doing it eliminates the necessity of the handles, which are usually a critical point in cafeterias both for wear and seal of the container itself. It is based on this idea that the name of the project was born: “(L)’ Unika Without the handle”.

Markus Johansson (Sweden)
The straight line is the shortest path between two points, but it rarely is the most interesting. The Loop Chair is inspired on the digressions of the mind. It is the result of wandering around the thought of a chair, and it is built by the physical wanderings of the material itself, almost as if it were a sketch. This abstract and symbolic approach adds values such as expressiveness, dynamism, fun and fantasy to the piece, deriving in a light-hearted and suggestive chair. The chair plays with its soft toy-like appearance, but is indeed a very functional chair: stackable, comfortable, long-lasting, resistant to exterior weather conditions and easy to clean, all of which makes it suitable for numerous different scenes for both interior and exterior environments. The Loop chair is an experimental project aiming to explore new ways of working for us and to let us get in touch with new materials and methods.

“For me, design is about conveying an emotion that affects human Life and enhance everyday life.”, says Markus.

The selection of the designers were based on their originality and their desire to leave a mark. ”The diversity of the countries of origin of the six designers shows us new ways of working, contemporary reinterpretations of past styles by combining old and new objects, experimentation with materials and innovative techniques while keeping traditional values alive”, tells head of Salone Satellite.