One good wallpaper design doesn’t always lead to an entire collection. A great idea for a notebook doesn’t make you the world’s stationery expert. But great ideas should not be shelved.
Enter NLXL LAB. NLXL LAB is not just about wallpaper editions. It’s a notebook, a keychain, a printed plywood stool and much more, designed by established designers or upcoming talents. New products will be added bimonthly, some in limited editions, others via worldwide distribution. All products carry the signature premium NLXL quality.
Says Rick Vintage, NLXL founder, “We get a lot of requests from designers with great ideas. For example Erik Gutter, the Cookie Bros and Thomas Eurlings. But also Jeanine Eek Keizer – Piet Hein’s wife – had a very remarkable idea for a Crown Caps wallpaper. Or Piet Hein Eek himself, we talked about a ‘Black Brick’ wallpaper, but it would have been weird to add this idea to the Scrapwood collections. In the near future Piet Boon, Studio Job, Merci and many other designers will follow. Of course we will also continue to release two collections per year under our NLXL brand.”
Besides wallpaper editions, NLXL LAB will add non-wallpaper products to its portfolio. The first product is the Plywood Print Stool with Piet Hein Eek & Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
Piet Hein Eek and NLXL started working together in 2010 on the now famous Scrapwood wallpaper collections. During one of the first meetings the idea of a knockdown printed furniture collection was born. “It should fit in a box.” Piet and NLXL founder Rick Vintage concluded as they parted their ways.
One year ago Piet Hein Eek received a wood-enabled printer from Canon. A visit to the Rijksmuseum and his appreciation for the way the museum converted their art collection to all sorts of products in their museum shop, made him decide to develop a product.
Says Piet Hein Eek: “Working with NLXL has been a very good balance between fun and success. So I am very pleased to add this new printed plywood stool to the NLXL LAB editions. This product can only exist through today’s techniques: CNC wood-cutting machines and wood-enabled printers. I thought it would be a great idea to combine these techniques with century old Dutch masters from the Rijksmuseum collection.”
The stools come flat-packed in bags designed to be hung from shop display rails, and are designed to be self-assembled. Three tapered plywood legs slot together to form a base for the seat. The artwork is not limited to the Rijksmuseum collection. As Rick Vintage puts it, “We are talking to a few museums to print stools with art from their collection so we can make limited editions for museum shops. We hope to get in touch with museums worldwide. Piet and I are really looking forward to seeing how this ‘art collection’ will develop.”
For more info, visit www.nlxl.com
