As we saw last month at the Interior Lifestyle China show in Shanghai, the Talents competition hosted annually by tradeshow organizer Messe Frankfurt is a great way for young designers to reach an international audience. Though only a small group of the several dozen international Talents selected this year attended the China show (the rest will be at the Frankfurt Ambiente show in February), the exhibition included both Chinese and European designers experimenting with innovative fabrication techniques and craftsmanship. Frankfurt-based Kai Linke was one standout with his Blasted W02 surface.

Linke worked with Catrin Altenbrandt and Adrian Niessler of Pixelgarten on the design of graphics for Blasted W02

The W02 is a relatively new addition to Linke’s Blasted family of designs (take a look at the rest here). Linke continues to work with wood’s inherent textures, this time sandblasting dimensional spruce panels to reveal deep grooves in the woodgrain where the material is not protected.

The design Linke presented in Shanghai consists of 29 spruce elements. Though only a few made the long trip from his studio in Frankfurt, the system can be customized with a range of panel sizes, imagery, and lettering. The panels can be installed permanently or with hooks that allow them to be moved or rearranged.

The designer also showed his new Blasted vases, created from wood molds treated with the same sandblasting process. The result is a textured vessel with a unique end-grain base.

Linke does not always work in wood; the third item displayed at the show was his Pi mirror, created, said the designer, “as if a child built a high tower of bricks.” The mirrors are a balancing act between the glass and the marble base, which is available in a cube or rectangular shape.

This marked only the second year the Talents exhibition traveled to Shanghai, but Nicolette Naumann, Messe Frankfurt’s Consumer Goods Fairs vice president, was confident this year’s Talents honorees were blazing the trail for other young designers in the future, not to mention making a name for themselves in China. “As a new design power representing different cultures and styles, they are bound to bring an extraordinary storm of innovation to the local design circles,” she said.

Click here to contact Kai Linke for purchasing information.

About the Designer: Frankfurt-based industrial designer Kai Linke founded his studio in 2009 after graduating from the Department of Industrial Design at the Academy of Art and Design in Offenbach, Germany.

About the Show: Established in 2007, Interior Lifestyle China is an extension of Ambiente, the world's largest annual consumer goods fair held in Germany and a sister show to Interior Lifestyle Tokyo. Interior Lifestyle China presents domestic and international brands to China's high-end interior market. Since the show's inception, almost all the well-known interior brands have exhibited their products at the Shanghai fair.