The first sets of creative cutlery commissioned by Antwerp's Valerie Objects have arrived from Maarten Baas and Koichi Futatsumata. The design label's Cutlery Project series invited seven designers to interpret and prototype eating tools with the intent to "surprise and delight" the user's different senses. 

The first to launch past the prototyping stage, Baas and Futatsumata each brought signature moves to the table. 

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The sleek, weighty-looking Futatsumata series features brushed brass and stainless, with striking flattened ends and soft squared edges. The noteworthy octagonal stems are based on the designer's favorite architectural pencil. The collection includes incredibly sharp chopsticks. With prior work in furniture, interior and architectural design, Futatsumata's precision and regularity shows up strong in these pieces.

Image via Dezeen

Maarten Baas went a characteristically wiggly route with his interpretation. The designer has lamented that much of a designed object's intrigue and beauty is lost in production, noting, "There is often a great deal of beauty in a rapid sketch, but those spontaneous lines often get lost in an industrial process." These pieces thumb their noses at that idea entirely, and capture the designer's playfulness.

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The profile of each piece carries an organic imperfect outline, that feels lifted from a sketchbook. The tines of the fork squiggle, the spoon bowls are gently off-round, and the knife is impressively serrated in an uneven line. This is, as Valerie Objects puts it, "an ostensibly simple intervention, which is precisely the most difficult part of production."

Baas: Stainless Edition

First presented at January's Maison & Objet, they'll be available soon. As different as they are, the two are a wonderful start to a series bound to bring "surprises and delights" of all kinds.

VO co-founder Veerle Wenes explained, "When I approached the designers and design teams to create a set of cutlery for Valerie Objects, I knew that they would each use their expertise, background and knowledge to come up with a completely divergent range of results. Some of them had already experimented with cutlery, others had been fascinated by the design for years, while for yet others it was their first foray into designing this modest eating tool. But whatever stage they were at, they all succeeded in delivering a surprise" 

Jinhyun Jeon, Muller Van Severen, Studio Simple, and Studio Wieki Somers have all weighed in with prototypes, and we're looking forward to where they take them.

Baas: Prototype Edition