What the work is
Dieter Rams formulated ten principles for good design from questions about his own work. They address innovation, usefulness, aesthetics, comprehension, restraint, honesty, longevity, detail, environmental consequences and reduction.
How it was made
The principles emerged alongside Rams’s industrial-design practice. They connect the appearance of products with what those products do, how clearly they communicate and the place they occupy in people’s lives. Rams introduced the idea of sustainable development, and of obsolescence as a crime in design, in the 1970s, and he asked himself whether his own design was good design. The answer became the ten principles. That practice was Braun: he joined the company in 1955, became head of design six years later and held the post until he retired in 1997. He recalled the Ulm school, through Hans Gugelot in product design and Otl Aicher in graphic design, as the path that made his group’s work possible. Alongside Braun he worked with Vitsœ from 1959, a collaboration that produced the 606 Universal Shelving System, still sold today with only minor changes.
What works
Their strength is breadth. An attractive surface cannot compensate for misleading claims or an obscure operation; the principles ask a reviewer to examine these qualities together rather than judge appearance alone. The principles themselves are specific about this. Honest design, they say, does not make a product seem more innovative, powerful or valuable than it is, and does not manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept. Long-lasting design avoids being fashionable. Unobtrusive design treats products as tools, neither decorative objects nor works of art, and leaves room for the user’s self-expression.
What does not
They are criteria for judgement, not a numerical certification. A product can satisfy one concern while creating a problem elsewhere, and calling it restrained does not establish its usefulness or environmental performance.
What it influenced
Rams’s approach influenced designers including Jonathan Ive, who acknowledged the inspiration of his work. That reception helps explain the principles’ importance beyond the particular Braun and Vitsœ products associated with their author. The echoes are specific: Apple’s iOS calculator references Braun’s 1987 ET66 calculator, the original iPod closely resembles the Braun T3 transistor radio, and the iOS 7 world clock app closely mirrors Braun’s clock and watch design. In a 2010 interview Rams said Ive sent him an iPhone with a letter thanking him for the inspiration, and in the 2009 film Objectified Rams said Apple is one of the few companies designing products according to his principles.
Is it worth your time
Worth using as a review framework. Apply each concern to one actual product and record the evidence for your judgement. The exercise is strongest when it exposes a trade-off or missing information rather than merely approving a familiar style.
