BNO yearbook '25-'26

Introduction 

Undercurrents — Dd Yearbook ’25–’26

The Dd Yearbook (published by BNO, Association of Dutch Designers) reflects on the past year while looking ahead to the future of Dutch design. Under the theme Undercurrents, it highlights hopeful counter-movements within the field responses to urgent societal challenges around sustainability, technology and collective life.

Beneath the surface of society, tensions build. Frustrations and fears often remain unspoken, quietly solidifying into polarising forces. Designers can help surface, redirect or question these undercurrents. Their interventions are never neutral they can connect confront or disrupt.

Concept

Across the Netherlands, small acts of resistance appear in public space: stickers on lamp posts, traffic lights and street signs. Anonymous. Direct. Immediate. Signals of something stirring beneath the surface.Inspired by this guerrilla language, we designed the cover to reject a fixed image. Instead, the yearbook appears as a blank, tactile canvas accompanied by a sheet of stickers.

No fixed image. No fixed message.  Only one sentence: All we need is … DRAMA. GRIT. LOVE. POWER. CASH. JOY. LOOKS. YOU. TIME. And, of course, BNO (Association of Dutch Designers) .

Readers are challenged to compose their own cover. Through selecting, positioning and combining words, each copy becomes a personal statement — a visible undercurrent shaped by imagination and soft power.

The Dutch Designers Yearbook no longer presents a singular narrative; it becomes an act of self-expression.

Relevance

Freedom of expression and the right to voice one’s own perspective are core values of our studio. Through our concepts and designs, we aim to create space for others to speak up – to make their thoughts visible and tangible.

For us, design is not only about form, but about invitation: encouraging people to express themselves.

By relinquishing control over the final image, the cover embodies this belief. It does not illustrate undercurrents but activates them.

Impact

Readers and BNO members shared their customised covers across social media, turning the yearbook into a distributed, collective expression. A modest intervention — a sticker on a blank surface — creates a tangible ripple of visibility, dialogue and connection.