Dieter Rams
Less but better.
Dieter Rams designed radios and other appliances for Braun and formulated ten principles for good design. His work has inspired Apple.
Dieter Rams was born in 1932 in Wiesbaden, Germany. His grandfather was a carpenter, and Rams has said that he learned a great deal from watching him work. He studied architecture and interior design at the Wiesbaden School of Arts and Crafts and also trained as a joiner. He worked for a time as an architect before joining the electronics company Braun in 1955.
At Braun he started by designing interiors but soon moved on to products. With Hans Gugelot of the Ulm School of Design he designed the SK 4 radiogram in 1956, whose transparent plastic lid earned it the nickname Snow White's Coffin. He became head of design in 1961 and stayed at Braun until the 1990s. His best-known products include the T3 pocket radio of 1958, shavers, loudspeakers, alarm clocks and calculators.
Rams also designed furniture for the company Vitsoe, including the 606 shelving system of 1960, which is still in production. His formal language is austere and clear: light grey and white surfaces, straight forms, simple controls and a few carefully considered colour accents. His motto was weniger, aber besser – less but better.
Around 1980 he set out ten principles for good design. He held that good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail and environmentally friendly, and that it involves as little design as possible. He has often criticised the throwaway society.
Rams has had great influence on later industrial design. Apple's chief designer Jonathan Ive has said that he was inspired by him, and the similarities between Braun and Apple products have often been noted. A documentary about him was released in 2018. Today he is seen as one of the most important industrial designers of all time.