We see too many soaps on TV, empty and banal, too many magazines, glossy but commonplace. We hear too many conversations, talks, music without content or beauty. We see too many products without message or identity. We experience too much banality, commercialisation of the emptiness, the cliché.

But nothing should be banal, every word, idea, each contact, flower or product should have a meaning, depth and value, or ; can be unique. Banality is a (non-)state of mind: is unconsciousness.

In nature nothing is banal; every flower is a wonder, every leaf an engineering-masterpiece, each tree is a great sculpture, every solution an ingenious design ( and we all are part of nature). So we have to perforate, look through the banality-façade to detect the essence, the real “reality”. So designing a (simple) product, living a (simple) event means: refusing the banal, searching for the redefinition of values, the re-invention of the meaningful, the mastering of the great totality.

Text written by Bob Daenen for the Design Innovation Yearbook 2003 Best of the Best awards- Red Dot Edition-red dot GmbH & Co.Kg, also published in his book: Letters to my Friend - 2003