Ask a Designer: Dieter Rams' 10 principles of good design

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Clear lines, understated color, functionality. Whether a record player, pocket calulator or alarm clock, products made by the Braun company in the 1950s and '60s are instantly recognizable. They were all designed by Dieter Rams. Now Cees de Jong from the Netherlands has published a new coffee-table book devoted to him and his ten principles for good design. Number one: Good design is innovative. Number two: Good design makes a product useful. Number three: Good design is aesthetic. "After Bauhaus you got this idea to keep it simple. These people were looking for the essence of design: how you have to make products, how you make graphic design. If you take all this in mind, it’s astonishing that you can find a designer – who is a fantastic designer – like Rams, but he can think too very well and he can write it down. He made his principles and it’s an eye-opener for lots of people. And that’s fantastic." The fourth principle: Good design makes a product understandable. Number five: Good design is unobtrusive. Number six: Good design is honest. Design professor Klaus Klemp has created a room at the museum of applied art in Frankfurt in honor of Dieter Rams with his Universal Shelving System 606, and other classics. Rams' transformed the world's living rooms. "Until that point, people had record players that were incorporated into pieces of furniture. They were hidden away in cabinets. The SK4 was the first piece of music equipment that openly displayed its technology, which was very tidy and aesthetic, and was certainly a trailblazer for all the later electronic equipment in living rooms or elsewhere in homes." Dieter Rams began working at the electric appliance manufacturer Braun in the mid-1950s. He quickly found success with his first designs. Soon after he was heading the design team. The SK 4 record player from 1956 became an instant classic. Rams created a new design language, and not just for his clients, Braun and the furniture maker Vitsoe. Decades later, designers from Apple invoked Rams's aesthetic. These days the 85-year-old lives near Frankfurt. And he's designed everything here: the building, the garden, the furniture, and the appliances. He rarely grants interviews, insisting that he's already said everything there is to say. Rams has never been at a loss for pointed statements about design. "For me, good design is most of all design that isn't insincere, design that's honest. Sensational things are hideous. For me, the quiet arrangement of things has always been something fundamental." Principle seven: Good design is long-lasting. Number eight: Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Number nine: Good design is environmentally friendly. Design has never been an end in itself for Dieter Rams, who has always kept the big picture in mind. He's never been able to relate to the modern age's throwaway society. "I think he is an exceptional figure. Not just because of his own designs, which of course played a huge role, especially in the 1960s, when he created totally new devices - but also his emphasis on the community as a whole: being interested in society, an early interest in ecology. And his interest in making objects that don't look out of date quickly, so they don't get cast aside. I think he's still a role model." With this book, Cees de Jong has created a lasting memorial to Dieter Rams's design principles. His tenth, and last, principle sums up his core beliefs: Good design is as little design as possible. Less true is more.
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Channel: DW Euromaxx
Views: 85,574
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Design, good design, product design, design highlights, Dieter Rams, Braun, household items design, interior design, home interior, DW interior design, DW, design classics, household products, design theory, design philosophy, designer, principles of good design, principles of good design dieter rams
Id: -mlAdcQZZAM
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Length: 4min 54sec (294 seconds)
Published: Wed Jan 24 2018
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