Set the Table for Summer with Knife Fork Spoon

If your summer plans involve growing plants, you have something in common with Polish designer Marcin Rusak. His maternal grandfather bred orchids, an influence on Rusak’s fusions of botany and technology. These utensils look more like flowers than flatware. On the forks and spoons, stem-like handles unfurl into functional ends shaped like leaves and petals, with gently ruffled edges. The delicate botanical forms were achievable through 3D-printing, a new technology for a familiar object.

Family gatherings can be an opportunity to connect and make memories across generations, each with a wide range of needs. Napier Company’s Tiny Tots Feeding Set gave children a more active role in mealtimes. The shovel-like food pusher helps children get food from their plates onto the fork and spoon. Angled utensil heads require less precision to maneuver. Eatwell was created for designer Sha Yao’s aging grandmother and developed through extensive research and testing at a local retirement home. The bright colors, anti-slip bottoms, and curved spoon handles help people with limited or deteriorating mobility, vision, or cognition.

This Yamazaki flatware may not be the most practical for actual beach meals, but it’s certainly thematically appropriate. Each utensil takes the form of a fish from top to bottom. The handles end in bifurcated, tail-like fins, and each functional end has tiny impressed eyes. Other subtle details, like the notched spoon bowls or shark-like fin on the back of the knife handle, enhance the flatware’s aquatic motifs. Even the title, Gone Fishin’, is reminiscent of a day on the water.