Dieter Rams and the ten principles of good design

Dieter Rams, born in 1932, is a German industrial designer who worked for Braun from 1955 and was the company's head of design for more than thirty years. He is known for austerely designed radios, record players and household appliances and for his ten principles of good design, summed up in the words “less, but better”.

Facts

Braun and the Ulm school

When the brothers Erwin and Artur Braun took over their father's electronics company in the early 1950s, they wanted to renew its products. They collaborated with teachers from the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, the school that carried on the ideas of the Bauhaus. Among them was the designer Hans Gugelot.

Dieter Rams, trained as an architect and a joiner, was hired in 1955 and quickly became one of the most important designers. From 1961 he led the design department, and he stayed until 1995. Read more about the school and the company under Ulm and Braun.

The products

The SK 4 of 1956, a combined radio and record player designed by Rams and Hans Gugelot, had a lid of transparent acrylic instead of wood. This gave it the nickname Snow White's coffin, and it was revolutionary at a time when radios were often built into furniture.

The T3 pocket radio of 1958 has a round speaker with a grid of holes and a simple dial. It is often cited as a model for the iPod, and Apple's designers have spoken openly about Rams's influence. The 606 shelving system for Vitsœ of 1960 is still made.

The ten principles

Towards the end of the 1970s Rams asked himself whether his own design was good design, and he formulated ten principles. Good design is innovative, makes a product useful, is aesthetic, makes a product understandable and is unobtrusive.

Good design is also honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly and as little design as possible. The last principle is summed up in his motto: less, but better. The principles are not rules for how something should look, but questions to ask of every object.

Rams and the environment

Rams was early to criticise the throwaway culture he felt design often contributed to. He argued that designers bear responsibility for making products last, be repairable and not go out of fashion unnecessarily. That principle has gained new relevance today, when sustainability and the careful use of resources are at the centre.

He has also spoken of design as something that should take a step back. An object should not be a work of art or a decoration but a tool, neutral and restrained, so that people and their lives can take centre stage.

How to recognise Rams's style

Rams's products have simple geometric forms, often rectangles and circles, in white, light grey or black, with a single accent of colour on a button or switch. The controls are clearly arranged and show how they are to be used. Nothing is decorative without a function.

Compare with Max Bill's kitchen clock, another Ulm object, and with later electronics such as the Macintosh. Do read the guides to the Bauhaus and Scandinavian design as well, and see more appliances in the category technology.

The ten principles in brief

Exercise

Which motto sums up Dieter Rams's view of design?