The theme for this year’s annual Danish Cabinetmakers’ autumn exhibition — held at the Oregaard Museum in Copenhagen in September and due to travel to Paris’s Maison du Danemark in January — was “petite”, the designs being a maximum size of 60cm by 60cm. But looking at the furniture by the 30 exhibitors, the brief could have been something else entirely.

From TAF’s metal champagne tray table to Norm Architects’ three-legged folding chair, the designs resemble a line drawing turned into furniture. “We decided to make this year’s theme ‘petite’ purely because our exhibition space was very small,” says Mia Lagerman, chairwoman of the cabinetmakers’ exhibition association. “The designers don’t discuss the work before it’s shown, so there must have been something in the air that caused many of the pieces to have such fragile lines.”

It is not only Danish designers whose work resembles precise pen strokes. French-Polish designer Marta Bakowski launched her collection of Rays lights at Paris’s Maison & Objet fair this autumn. Each is made of a circular acrylic panel with a mirror LED bulb at the centre surrounded by hand-woven, two-tone threads that represent rays of light.

“I started by experimenting with weaving techniques and basket-making, then gradually developed the idea into a disc shape,” she says. “I was asking, ‘how can I make a lamp that talks about light even when it’s not lit up?’ Previously I have woven with reflective materials, but here I wanted to use pointillism [the style using tiny dots of colour developed in the 19th century by Georges Seurat]. I approached it as a painter would, looking at how colours interact and weaving different shades together.”

Also displayed at Maison & Objet was Cuban designer René Barba’s tennis racket-shaped paper lamp for Ligne Roset. It comprises a double-sided fabric envelope with a pattern of black lines, which is slipped over an LED bulb and supported by a black lacquered steel base. “This graphic effect is very fashionable and echoes the trend for textured motifs on flat surfaces,” says Barba.

Interior designer Annick Petersen, whose cage-like lights are made from thin copper wire strips, believes line-based designs are part of a trend for furniture made from industrial materials. “This raw look is a very popular design statement at the moment,” she says.

This view is borne out by the growing number of designers using powder-coated aluminium and steel in tables and chairs. One example is Made in Ratio’s Supernova trestle table, launched two years ago. It is topped with toughened glass and features two sets of star-shaped legs made from sand-cast recycled aluminium, which can be rotated to make a lower-height coffee table. “The six points touching the floor and glass create a structure no matter which way they are oriented. I wanted to meld those points in the form of a supernova, so it looks like a stellar explosion,” says Made in Ratio founder Brodie Neill. “Transparency of form and being very pared back is something I pursue in my work and the Supernova has both those qualities. The weight of the glass complements the geometrical, sculptural legs.”

Mirka Grohn and Jo Wilton, the co-founders of furniture brand &New, also achieve elegant lines and minimal forms using powder-coated steel. Their colourful Robot Too sideboard and Robot side table both have angular, zigzag legs. “We used steel because we wanted to create something delicate-looking,” says Grohn. “With steel, the furniture is very strong, but you can achieve really fine lines. Also, the legs are playful, just a bit of fun.”

John Liston uses powder-coated steel for his Ribbon chairs. They look at first glance like a messy scribble in red crayon. “It wasn’t intentional, but it works well for this design,” says Liston, who was inspired by the way shadows from buildings take whatever form they fall on. “A shadow can transform the shape of a park bench with the graphic lines of the balusters and handrails and the angle of the light.” For him, the beauty of the material lies in its unexpectedness. “I love the idea of a chair looking like it might not be able to sustain weight, yet at the same time the steel gives it a huge structural integrity. Making furniture with a very thin structure creates negative space, so the piece looks lighter than it is.”

Of course, these delicate structural forms aren’t new. In the 1950s, both Harry Bertoia and Charles and Ray Eames launched wire furniture. More recently, in 2013, the South Korean designer Jinil Park launched his Drawing Series of chairs, lamps and a table, each with intersecting lines that exactly replicate his preliminary sketches.

German graphic designer Verena Hennig’s powder-coated aluminium Roll seating is an extension of her two-dimensional art. “My graphics are minimalist and reduced, so I wanted to create furniture that also only uses minimal lines,” she says.

Arihiro Miyake is another designer whose work displays this angular aesthetic. He designed the ballerina-inspired Coppélia suspended lamp for Moooi, with a crossed wire structure that acts as a base for dozens of LED lights.

Other examples of the trend include Swedish interior stylist Annaleena Leino’s minimalist geometric clothes rails that hang from the ceiling, and Portuguese brand Galula’s Pendura coat stand, a simple triangle designed to be propped against a wall.

“Triangles create almost a frame against the wall. We wanted something with lines that looked just as beautiful without coats hanging from it,” says co-designer Filipa Mendes.