Every year, young American design grads flock to ICFF with hopes of parlaying a few thousand dollars spent on booths and new works into a full-blown design career. It works for just enough people to keep the dream alive for the next batch. Here's a look at the best work by youngsters who managed to make it to ICFF 2010.

Pictured here, Jonah Takagi, who was born in Tokyo, raised in Connecticut, and graduated from RISD in 2002. After graduation, Takagi built props for theater and TV, played in a rock band, and tinkered with furniture in his spare time. But this year, he basically won the lottery: After a string of awards that began in 2009, he was tapped as Bernhardt's American Design Honors 2010 Emerging Designer of the Year.

Takagi scored an production deal from New York retailer Matter, for his F/K/A Table Lamp.

At Noho Next, a satellite show organized by Sight Unseen, Takagi showed his Scaffold Shelving.

The shelves showed pristine craftsmanship.

Takagi's Bluff City Lights.

Another piece shown at Noho Next, by Uhuru, a firm started by 2004 RISD graduates Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf. The Cyclone lounger was crafted from wood reclaimed from the demolished Coney Island Boardwalk, and it's shape references the legendary Cyclone roller coaster.

Uhuru's Wonder and Drop Tables, which are also part of the Coney Island line.

Also at the Noho Next show, Xavier Manosa and Alex Trochut's Manga series of vases and wall pieces, which are easy to picture in Kanye West's dream home.

At the fair itself, waaaaay in the back where the booths are cheapest, three students from Sweden's Konstfack School of Arts and Design managed to scrape together the funds for a remarkably polished debut. Bengt Brummer, John Astbury, and Karin Wallenbeck call themselves the What's What Collective...

...and they showed three clever lamps.

Each of them can be mechanically dimmed or transformed. This lamp can be configured as a room-filling up-light ...

... but with the pull of a drawstring, it transforms into an overhead pendant.

This one has a simple mechanical arm ...

... and it can be dimmed simply by pushing it down.

Also at the fair, several students and recent grads showed off work at the ICFF studio, sponsored by Bernhardt. The company paid for the booth--the students selected just had to get there.

Here, Jacob Nitz, who's still a student at the University of Cincinnati and plies his work as Amirite Design.

Nitz created the CNNCT chairs, as part of a graduation project where he's creating a single, branded line.

The chairs have felt slipcovers that also have pouches for storage.

The brothers Wills: Chase (seated) and Nathan. The two work together as Level Design. Chase is trained as an industrial designer; Nathan, who studied car design, actually has a piece on display at the National Design Triennial: A plug-in hybrid van. http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Why-Design-Now/project/idea-plug-in-hybrid-electric-fleet-vehicle

The two collaborated on Hyve, a stacking shelving and room-divider system.

Brooke Woosley, a recent graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. She's standing in front of Chloros, a lit, wall-mounted display for showing off curios.

Woosley's Oru coffee table, created from a single sheet of metal and inspired by origami.