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Labt

Labt is a Belgian design collective that creates small edition pieces of furniture and accessories. The various designers collaborate on the different projects they produce, all without deadlines hanging over their heads. Once they put a product out and it’s on the market, they move on and begin a new collaboration.

From the Ghent-based graphic design duo Jan & Randoald:

No medium is as efficient as graphic work, because in it everything can be combined. For the printer graphic is crossover: printing on an earlier print. Take for example the trunk of a tree. First there is the veneer lathe: it reveals the interior of the tree as a pattern on a wooden sheet. Like the pages of a book these sheets are stacked together to form a board of plywood. On this book we printed a cover.

The Trolley (first image also)

A modular filing and storage system that allows you to stack different components based on your needs. I love the fact that you can mix and match and that some pieces have a different pattern on the sides while some remain in their natural state.

Trofee
These printed trophies made out of building materials are so fun and can stand on their own with no extra support.

From Henk De Smet & Paul Vermeulen:

We wanted to make a simple, cheap table using only panel materials. We used to think of a table as ‘a board on four sticks’. But in this table all components should be panels. Frank found us beautifully veneered softwood plywood from Poland. We cut it like a sheet of cotton is cut for jeans, and then assembled it. These jeans are stiff enough to stand without anyone wearing them.

Loose Fit tables
I love the simplicity of these tables. They look great as they are, without paint, stain or any adornment.

From JIJ’s:

This table didn’t originate at the drawing board, it was taken from your memory. Didn’t your grandmother have one? But making it from inexpensive plywood adds distinction. Especially the process of turning the legs from a stack of boards produces a dramatic texture. Les Ballets C de la B commissioned a table that can easily be moved by a single person or even taken along. Together with Serge from the dance company we came up with legs that have a wooden helical thread that screws into the tabletop, reminiscent of piano legs. Finally we have removed a node from the wood and inserted a twig into the cavity, as if it shot there after all.

Table

And a little bit of everything:

Photos by Filip Dujardin and Julien Lanoo.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.