About Lento
Lento is an experimental e-store for thoughtful, slow-produced art and design products. We curate small-batch collections made by independent designers and makers who work with care for materials, people, and places—guided by a simple idea: fewer, better objects, used for longer.
The Lento name is inspired by the name for the slow musical tempo, of circa 52–108 beats per minute. This roughly matches the human heart beat. In European classical music, tempo is the speed or pace of a given composition, and is often also an indication of the composition's atmosphere.
We are the e-commerce sibling of Lakescape – Creative Lake Restoration Network (Vänern, Balaton, Ohrid), a cross-border platform connecting designers and communities around Europe’s lakes, which supports design that listens to local knowledge and ecosystems before it speaks.
Our Values
Slow production and logistics principles
Lento believes there is a better way to make things, a slower way. For creators, buyers, and our planet. Our business model is defined by slowing down processes from production to logistics.
What you buy from Lento is made with the ambition to slow down the culture and impacts of online shopping across the whole value chain. In line with our values, Lento lets you choose quality over speed, craft over convenience, and meaning over mass production. This translates to the Lento “fork to farm/nature to hand” business principles:
Who makes Lento
Lento is produced by Lakescape – Creative Lake Restoration Network.
Lento’s creators are part of the Lakescape network designers and makers who work in dialogue with places and people. Some first appeared through Lakescape residencies and collaborative tests (like floating exhibit prototypes). Lento gives these ideas a practical home so they can be admired and used.
Watch the series of short videos about the Lakescape designers and their creative approaches toward echoing the voices of the Great European Lakes.
This project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. This website was created and maintained with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the project partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Set to a gentle tempo. Designed slowly, made to last.
You can read and download the Lakescape Catalogue and get introduced with our project journey.
Lento is an experimental e-store for thoughtful, slow-produced art and design products. We curate small-batch collections made by independent designers and makers who work with care for materials, people, and places—guided by a simple idea: fewer, better objects, used for longer.
The Lento name is inspired by the name for the slow musical tempo, of circa 52–108 beats per minute. This roughly matches the human heart beat. In European classical music, tempo is the speed or pace of a given composition, and is often also an indication of the composition's atmosphere.
We are the e-commerce sibling of Lakescape – Creative Lake Restoration Network (Vänern, Balaton, Ohrid), a cross-border platform connecting designers and communities around Europe’s lakes, which supports design that listens to local knowledge and ecosystems before it speaks.
Our Values
- Slow by intent:We move at a lento tempo: research, test, refine. We choose craft processes that take time because time improves quality, belonging, and repairability.
- Craft as knowledge: Traditional methods (casting, weaving, hand-building, printmaking) are living technologies. We pair them with careful experimentation to create durable, useful pieces.
- Climate & lake awareness: We design with water in mind: materials, finishes, and logistics are selected for lower impact. We advocate for stewardship of lake ecosystems and the communities who live with them.
- Transparency: Every product lists materials, origin, and care. We prioritize small runs, honest pricing, and clear information over fear of missing out.
- Longevity over novelty: Keep, repair, pass on. We sell quality made products meant to live long. We are glad to help you find a repairing solution when feasible, rather than a replacement.
Slow production and logistics principles
Lento believes there is a better way to make things, a slower way. For creators, buyers, and our planet. Our business model is defined by slowing down processes from production to logistics.
What you buy from Lento is made with the ambition to slow down the culture and impacts of online shopping across the whole value chain. In line with our values, Lento lets you choose quality over speed, craft over convenience, and meaning over mass production. This translates to the Lento “fork to farm/nature to hand” business principles:
- Nature-based and repurposed sourcing of materials: Reclaimed wood, low-toxicity glazes, post-consumer papers, recycled fibres are fundamental examples of how our creators source materials with no added environmental impact, from responsible sources, that can be used again, or have been used before.
- Manual craftsmanship before over-industrialization: Our creators are silversmiths, leather workers who use traditional fish tanning methods, woodworkers, or ecological designers specialized in manual production and techniques that can't be rushed. Objects are made with as little industrial processing as possible.
- Product lifetime designed for longevity over novelty: Our products are designed to be kept long-term, without planned obsolescence or in response to fads. If no longer working as intended, they can be repaired, repurposed for materials, or recycled, in that order. Repair policies vary from creator to creator.
- Demand-driven supply and frugal infrastructure: Our productions are small-scale and based on actual customer orders, to avoid overstocking and wasted resources. This means no emissions from e-commerce warehouses, automated digital ecosystems, AI-applications whether they actively in use or not.
- Shipping logistics with minimal impact and slow ambition: Packaging materials for orders are repurposed, recycled or sourced from circular packaging solutions, while shipping routes are manually designed to find the optimal, less impactful transport and last-mile delivery options - even if slower. Our vision is to develop a peer-to-peer shipping ecosystem, in which your product is transported hand-to-hand.
- Economic experimentation with post-growth model: Product costs must cover production and shipping, as well as operation of the e-commerce platform, but the store operates on a non-profit model. There is no incentive to sell more out of greed, with a small percentage of prices covering investment in environmental projects.
Who makes Lento
Lento is produced by Lakescape – Creative Lake Restoration Network.
Lento’s creators are part of the Lakescape network designers and makers who work in dialogue with places and people. Some first appeared through Lakescape residencies and collaborative tests (like floating exhibit prototypes). Lento gives these ideas a practical home so they can be admired and used.
Watch the series of short videos about the Lakescape designers and their creative approaches toward echoing the voices of the Great European Lakes.
This project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. This website was created and maintained with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the project partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Set to a gentle tempo. Designed slowly, made to last.
You can read and download the Lakescape Catalogue and get introduced with our project journey.
Our Partners
If you are interested in becoming a partner or sponsor, please feel free to contact us.
