This year the most exciting work there came from Israel under the title 'Promisedesign'. With fresh ideas for furniture, the designers displayed a youthful feeling in their work that made an interesting alternative to the more sober stuff at the show. While bright colours helped, it was the imagination behind the work that set it apart: witness the potty with feet and a toilet-roll tail, its anthropomorphic character entirely conceptually appropriate. The silicon fruit bowl also caught one's attention, with slits in the material flexing to accommodate different foods.

The set of appliances for kitchen counters by I2D demonstrated the designer's ability to resolve ideas in this attractive solution. Taking porcelain as an inspiration, Elisha Tal and Eyal Cremer have given the plastics used a feeling of high quality not always present in product design. In terms of resolution, this was far ahead of the other projects, though the others fought back with their greater experimentation. Also inside Triennale were students from Melbourne displaying their ideas on how to interact with Milan. Projects ranged from television sets put up over the city, to more sculptural proposals with a physical and not just visual inter-relation.

Superstudio Piu' in Zona Tortona is one of the main attractions of the fair, featuring companies with many young designers on board. As a result, work here tends to be both imaginative and well done. Thorsten van Elten displayed his usual array of witty products, though his new shelves and rocking chair showed a new maturity in his work. In producing 'wit' in design, what he was essentially doing was creating individuality. Though his rocking chair is not as humorous as an LED cuckoo clock, it still displays a strong sense of uniqueness.

Alongside, work by Hay showed holes making a comeback in furniture. This visual weakening in design seems to have borrowed from the typically exciting work by the Brazilian Campanas brothers. Objects picked up from the street inspire their irregular compositions of household objects. Though it seems improbable Hay or any of the Israeli designers did the same, the effect is clearly related: while in isolation the pieces are visually random, their context deciphers these irregularities.

Somewhere in between the minimalist sofas and Buxton-esque stool concepts came the inevitable fence sitting. Edra proposed its new seating: standard in form but fluorescent spaghetti in fabric. Though more of a trend-follower than a trend-setter, these chairs will still provide inspiration for all those parasitic silent behemoths that make the majority of our furniture: unwilling to invest in new technology or greater labour costs, a simple change of covers will be quite exciting enough. For those with more taste – and money – Ezri Tarazi's table is set to become a bookmark design, its unique aesthetic generated by the composition of box-section aluminium extrusions of various sizes.

And so to Fiera, the focus of the show, to those behemoths at least. Here they can look at pastel poufs to their hearts content, while the rest head to Hall 9 for the Satellite. Each year, young designers on the up exhibit their new works from inside their little hutches. London's Max Lamb showed his polystyrene chair, a product in seeming accordance with the 'accidental aesthetic' seen elsewhere. It is also an example of the importance of execution. So many pieces are demonstrations of an idea, rather than its direct implication on function. The more successful ones maintain clarity of technique, while still expanding one's expectations of what a given piece can be. Lucas Chirnside's world clock draws upon Sam Buxton's technique of chemically-etched aluminium to create a beautifully resolved timepiece, while a rotating seat/table was another example of a well-executed concept.