Critical term for things that are over-designed, coined by product designer and architect Alessandro Mendini to create awareness of the industrial design of mundane objects and to stylise the trivial as high culture.
Objects of every-day use such as clothes pegs, irons, and carpet sweepers are given decorative elements to accentuate them, make them alien, and combine them into new objects. His exhibition “L´Ogetto Banale”, held as part of the Venice Biennale in 1980 and organised together with Paola Navone, Franco Raggi, and Daniela Puppa, received acclaim. In addition, the term “banal design” is also used for the anonymous industrial design of mass consumer goods which only barely meet consumers’ needs.
