Live from Milan: Self-styled "industrial tailor" Dick Van Hoff has created a collection of desk products for Dutch ceramics company Royal Tichelaar Makkum.

The collection - called Work - consists of lamps, a clock, a vase and a pen tray made of ceramic and wood.

More info from Makkum below:

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Work

Royal Tichelaar Makkum will for the fifth time take part in the Salone del Mobile of Milan. This year we have chosen a project with Dick van Hoff to represent our collection. Contrary to earlier presentations, in Van Hoff’s range of highly functional products technology rather than decoration or design is the main theme.

Likewise the tabletop theme is replaced with the related desk. The result: a series called ‘Work’, including five desk ornaments: two desk-lamps, a clock, a vase and a pen tray. New is also that all objects are made of ceramics and wood.

The ceramic products have oak parts, which they would not be able to do without for functioning properly. The oak parts actually make the difference between ornament and tool. Royal Tichelaar Makkum again managed to widen the use of ceramics and illuminate it from a different perspective.

Royal Tichelaar Makkum likes working with like minded artists. In recent years these were Hella Jongerius, Studio Job, Marcel Wanders and Jurgen Bey.

Dick van Hoff, a versatile artist with a remarkable feeling for design and material, and great affection for industrial and traditional technology, is a logical choice for Tichelaar. His work is collected by the famous Boijmans van Beuningen art museum of Rotterdam and various Van Hoff products can be found in the Droog collection.

For Dick van Hoff, the production process, even more than the design from which he starts, is essential for his art. Consequently his work has an organic way of evolving, which lends it an authenticity that appeals to many connoisseurs’ imagination.

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Dezeen's coverage of Milan 2007 is brought to you in conjunction with the International Design Forum. Visit our IDF blog here.