Muji, Rubbermaid, Umbra, the Container Store: These are the companies I might start with if doing research prior to designing common household goods. But another company you should check out, and which you've probably never heard of if you're not Nordic, is Orthex.

It's perhaps not fair to call Orthex the Muji of Finland; Muji was only founded in 1980, whereas Orthex has been cranking out household basics since 1956. But an article in Finland's Ilta-Sanomat newspaper acknowledges that the company is "almost unknown in the rest of the world," while in Finland, 9 out of 10 households have Orthex food storage containers in their freezers and Orthex buckets in a closet.

The company has subsidiaries in nearby Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany, and through their three brands—Orthex, SmartStore and GastroMax—they produce storage items, kitchenware, tableware, bins, buckets, baskets, tubs, plant care objects, and most recently a line of green containers made from recycled fishing nets.

The way their website is laid out, it's difficult to see their entire product range at once; but if you know what specific category you'd like to dive into, you can start here. (Click on "Products" at the top left of that link; the website's configured in such a way that I cannot provide a direct link to it.)