Black pepper mill by Maarten Baas

­­­­Few designers have such a recognizable signature style as Maarten Baas. You can practically guess that this slightly crooked pepper mill was conceived by him just by glancing at it.

Baas started off from the archetypical pepper mill which consists of a cylinder and a round head on top of it. Instead of streamlining theses two parts into a unified whole, he materialized a sketchy drawing of a mill. Baas actually designed a perfectly functional tool made from ABS resin that looks like it has been hammered by granddad in his barn. This contrast, industrial versus hand-made, makes out the core of Baas’ work.

If you look close, you’ll notice that there’s not one straight line to this mill. Even the length of the cylinder curves just a bit. This is a piece of meticulously designed imperfection.