Dieter Rams - Wikipedia

Dieter Rams was the lead designer at Braun for many years. He is driven by the idea that almost everything is noise. He believes very few things are essential. His job is to filter through that noise until he gets to the essence. For example, as a young twenty-four-year-old at the company he was asked to collaborate on a record player. The norm at

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“Limit everything to the essential but do not remove the poetry.”

— Dieter Rams, quoted in Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams

A good product is:

1. Innovative; it must have creativity


2. Useful


3. Beautiful


4. Easy to use


5. Unobtrusive, modest


6. Honest


7. Timeless ; it won’t become outdated


8. Doesn’t skip over any small details


9. Environmentally friendly and doesn’t waste resources


10. Not overly designed, “less is more”

Dieter Rams' "10 Principles of Good Design"; I have been following his principles as much as I can, as they match, more or less, those of UNIX's philosophy:

1. Good design is innovative

2. Good design makes a product useful

3. Good design is aesthetic

4. Good design makes a product understandable

5. Good design is unobtrusive

6. Good design is honest

7. G... See more

“Design should also be sensual and exciting.”