Getting into Easter mode, I couldn’t help but do a double-take at this new design by Maarten Baas. Yeah, it’s a stretch, but everytime I read his name I think of the popular brand of easter egg dye, PAAS. In the Plain Collection of furnishings released for Salone this week in Milano, the Dutch designer leaves the ‘P’ for the festive ‘pastel’ shades we’re seeing splashed about this spring and throws his coloring into the ‘bold’ ring.

Plain Collection. Designed by Maarten Baas.

Simple, Modern Seating and Tables Make Up the Plain Collection by Maarten Baas Debuting at Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2011

Moving away from iPhone apps that he was designing recently, Baas found his knack for spontaneous, eclectic furniture all over again. The Plain Collection is currently on display at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milano. It resembles the Clay series he produced back in 2006. The difference? These chairs and tables are purposely made stronger since they’re used in public projects like the restaurant within the Netherland’s Groninger Museum.

An unusual material used to design furniture, the clay that Baas employs for their structure is meant to hold onto the fingerprints created on its surface during their creation. Unlike the Clay series, the Plain Collection is pigmented throughout the entire body of each seat and table in your choice of Black, Red, or Natural. This means that not only are the handmade furnishings meant to be stronger than before, it’s also going to require less maintenance – with no need for lacquer finishing.

I am in complete agreement with the comparison drawn by our friends at Core77 between the modifications of the new Plain Collection when they state that “these pieces feel more resolved and grown up than their predecessors, losing a bit of liveliness but gaining visual weight,” going on to say how their favorite aspect of the line is the treatment of the drawer in the side table with its smooth opening and closing, regardless of its clay-built imperfect state.

Since 2005, Maarten Baas & Bas den Herder have come together to produce the products that Maarten designs. In 2009, the two moved the studio to a farm near Hertogenbosch, in the south of Holland. The barn is now a workshop – where the production of protoypes and small editions takes place – as he continues to utilize his Design Academy Eindhoven knowledge alongside the larger-scale manufacturing capabilities that come from working alongside den Herder. New solo exhibitions will be launched in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo and Shanghai this coming year.

Photos via Core77.