More buoyant than ever this year, Dutch Design Week bounced back with a bounty of playful colour palettes and highly considered craftsmanship.

Here we are share some of our top spots from the 2023 show, boasting irresistibly inviting, candy inspired hues, product design bursting with childhood nostalgia, and process driven craft.

Studio Thier & van Daalen: GRID, Bulla & The Plastic Mine

Kicking off our roster of celebrated colour and craft top spots is Studio Thier & van Daalen. Iris van Daalen & Ruben Thier are the designer-makers behind the material curious pratice. Each sharing a fascination for reflections, colours and the elasticity of materials, the design duo translates matter into sustainable design products - spanning lighting, furniture, jewellery, accessories and unique objects.

GRID is a series of glass blown light pendants, with mesmerising and bulbous shapes, casting eye-catching reflections through the tactile structured glass surface. The studio has intensively researched different patterns in glass. The beam of light from the custom developed spotlight is projected almost invisibly on and through the structured glass, leaving a soft, hypnotising effect on its surrounding, like rippling water or cloudy skies. Centuries-old craftsmanship is combined with contemporary LED technology in the series of GRID pendents, projecting sensitive and thoughtful colour combinations into interior schemes.

Stemming from a love for bubble-like shapes, the BULLA wall light bulges proudly on a wall. The glass is handblown freely and not in a wooden mould, meaning each piece is unique. The studio developed a light element, which follows the inner shape like an infinite loop, casting beautiful colour reflections on its surroundings.

The Plastic Mine has been re-visited in a collaborative project with Dutch shoe brand, Yume Yume - a well partnered, perfect match in design language, colour and material. The studio developed a special and limited edition of the well-known recycled wall shelf from the series 'the plastic mine'.  Yume Yume carefully colour matched their collection of limited slippers to the shelves .

These unique plastic shelves are comprised of residual plastic or production waste from a Dutch factory where industrial semi-finished products are produced. These plastic by-products of Yume Yume’s factory cannot be reprocessed and so Studio Their & van Daalen worked to transform it, mining the beauty in ‘waste’ material.

Studio Rinke Joosten: Momentum

Studio Rinke Joosten is a Netherlands-based design studio located in Rotterdam. As an artist and ceramicist, Rinke experiments with materials and production methods to create one-of-a-kind works of art.

On chatting to Rinke at Dutch Design Week, we were touched by her commitment to championing the process of making craft objects alongside her collaborators, rather than the achieved end result. Through a symbiotic focus between material and considered execution of the craft process, Rinke advocates value of hand-made objecta over the mass produced.

In the project Momentum, she explores the relationship between efficiency and creative freedom in the context of the art of craftsmanship, identifying that in our industrial age, the handmade and the human imprint are important indicators of authenticity.

Rinke’s glistening, liquid-like vessels capture a moment in time, a material momento of a craft person’s expertise, knowledge and relationship with the material. Momentum is a collection of glass blown objects that have become knowledge artefacts of the craft person’s captured expertise.

Pinkie X APTUM: Gold Delight

Working our way around the DDW map, we were quickly enticed by the patisserie/lighting collaboration of Pinkie and APTUM.

Aptum consciously seeks collaboration with creatives from other disciplines. Experimenting with boundless forms of creativity, Aptum pushes beyond the boundaries of its own fields, in order to surprise, amaze, and enchant the audience.

Gold Delight is a design collaboration between lighting designers and a pastry chef. Although - on the surface - this seems like a slightly unlikely partnership, it certainly produces pleasing results for the senses.

As neighbours, Aptum and Pinkie Patisserie have grown into pioneers of their respective crafts and developed a relationship across friendly conversation and delicious pastries. There is a shared creative approach that flows into each of the company’s creations; most obviously, a clear mutual love for both colour and form, which emerges from the installation both graphic and playful.

Gold Delight is a sensory explosion, one of which can be admired and tasted on the plate, and appreciated in the surrounding space.

Studio RENS X Tarkett

Studio RENS has stunned us a second year round with a considered collection of interrogatory colour combinations. At this year’s Dutch Design Week, the design studio collaborated with flooring manufacturer, Tarkett to explore new product applications with linoleum.

Linoleum is a well known product in the interiors sector, yet still contemporary. It is a natural and sustainable material, as well as durable and easy to maintain. Through exploring Lino Undercover, Studio RENS uncovers the hidden facets of linoleum, breaking it free from its known image and shedding its familiar reputation.

The studio probes the material, questioning: What if down is up, and the back is the front? What if the invisible becomes visible, and the frayed edges take centre stage? Through stripping, slicing, dissecting, reversing, slotting together and colouring, the studio presents refreshed applications, and product concepts of linoluem.

Samuel Szraga: MIK-CERA & Spirit Lamps

Samuel Szraga is a product designer-maker that's recently graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Specialising in ceramics and metals, Samuel’s projects are saturated in story-telling and creative expression.

MIK-CERA is the product of Samuel’s fascination for street art and graffiti, an interest that has stuck with him since he was a teenager. Spotted whilst wondering the Isola Design Community exhibit, we quickly fell in love with these street art inspired ceramics. Stemming from the thrill associated with making graffiti art; finding a spot, and then spraying on impulse, MIK-CERA challenges whether ceramic objects can trigger a more appreciated response to graffiti art. Samuel’s hand-crafted pieces are seen as an invitation to habitants to interact and involve themselves with the art, rather than seek to remove or destroy it.

Spirit Lamps builds on Samuel’s conceptual narrative of spirit beings evolving in the bowels of our buildings, particularly in the air vents where they find refuge from the chaos of the outside world. Each lamp is made from old industrial tubes salvaged from scrap yards for the lampshade, and steel rods for the ‘spirit’s’ body.

Erik Stehmann

Playful product designer, Erik Stehmann designs objects as if they are toys for adults: championing joyful design with highly executed craftsmanship. Since 2009, he has been exploring childhood fascinations in his studio, seeking fresh possibilities and applications of techniques, materials and products.

Erik consciously keeps his studio as a place where he can be shamelessly infantile and throw out the rule book - important for him to cultivate new inventions and designs. His maker-instinct and technical knowledge of materials allow Erik to executive an impressively high quality within his works.

“The best thing about my work is that I can challenge and surprise myself every day”

Erik’s exhibit at Dutch Design Week 2023 allowed visitors to feel like they were climbing into a design-led, joyful children’s party - full of mischief and glee. A party that seemingly everyone wanted to be a part of, we were lucky to catch a glimpse of some of his products on display.

Previously of the view that 3D printing is a process used for printing technical parts and not for aesthetically driven products, The PWT Lamps are products of Erik’s overcome, self confessed prejudices of 3D printing techniques. Losing himself in his playful exploration of the technology, Pretty Weird Things is a collection of ingenious and fully 3D printed lamps. Designed to achieve the best possible quality using the FDM 3D printing technique, Erik even designed and built his own printer specially in order to fabricate these organic, fluid shapes.

Bright and cheerful, The Toní is a new classic bistro-set, designed for the iconic Dutch design brand, Fatboy. The Toní collection reinterprets the well-known bistro set, with its typical round seated chair. These chairs and tables were developed with the focus on outdoor use, featuring fresh and friendly appearance, and prioritising high practicality and great comfort. Made from aluminium - a lightweight and durable option - and finished with the highest degree of exterior coating.

Described as ‘worm-like interior jewellery’, Showpik are Erik’s handmade mirrorball sculptures, made use leftover mirror materials from his workshop.