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We hear quite often that less is more, but what about less is better? Those are the words of designer Dieter Rams.
For more than 50 years, Rams made an indelible mark on product design, predominantly at the German electronics company Braun, with a focus on function over form and products that would last a lifetime.
The effects of his influence are extraordinary — a legacy that transformed the nature of consumer products and, some would argue, defined the concept of good design.
Rams was the design director at Braun from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. He was in charge of the look and function of more than 500 consumer products. He helped the founding Braun brothers create everything from radios and alarm clocks to juicers and razors and even record players.
At 86, Rams lives in Wiesbaden, Germany. A Porsche is parked out the front of a boxy modernist house with a made-for-Instagram interior.
The rooms are filled with a tasteful array of products he designed decades ago: the olive green Braun coffee maker; his wall-mounted hi-fi; and the iconic calculator (check your iPhone number-cruncher for a modern-day homage).
Rams, his life, his work and his legacy, is the subject of a new documentary from Gary Hustwit, who made the typeface documentary Helvetica in 2007. The title of this film, like his work, is simple: Rams.
Function over form
Every Dieter-Rams-designed product had a special look: “There was always kind of a very simple aesthetic to them. They looked very clean,” says Hustwit.
“In some ways, Rams’ work really did affect a lot of people’s lives, even though they probably aren’t aware of it.”
In Germany, post World War II, a democratic simplicity emerged that had never been seen before.
“They were just trying to kind of make something new and something that made sense to them,” says Hustwit.
“This idea of ornamentation and Art Deco from the 1930s and 40s, was something that they wanted to just really get away from. It was about this new, industrial aesthetic.
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“Dieter was influenced by the Bauhaus, the German school. It was a component of modernism and a lot of different disciplines.”
Rams and his team worked to distil a design down to only the crucial components. The idea was to arrive at form following function.
“They’re not just designing products from the outside — what they’re going to look like — and then figuring out how they work,” says Hustwit.
“They’re going to design the insides, the guts of something, and then the outside form is going to be reflective of that.”
‘Snow White’s Coffin’
Take for example, Rams’ SK4 record player for Braun, which has two speakers at the front, a simple rectangle of Plexiglass forming the lid, a turntable and a radio dial on the side.
Created in 1956, It was lovingly named “Snow White’s Coffin” and was the first turntable to feature a Plexiglass cover, says Hustwit.
“It was like a crystal box. But now, today, you think of a record turntable, and of course it’s got a Plexiglass cover. It just became part of the vernacular for that object.”
This particular item is available from some resellers for up to $3,000. Perhaps more surprising — “they still work”.
“They built those things to last, last a lifetime,” Hustwit says. “And if they did break, they built them to be repaired very easily.”
The importance of repairability is part of Rams’ ethos. “Good design is long-lasting” is one of his core values.
Rams set out the principles he attempted to follow in his work, in what the internet refers to as the “10 Commandments of Good Design”.
These rules, including, “good design is honest”, “good design is environmentally friendly”, and “good design is as little design as possible” have been adopted by other creatives.
“So much of media and products today want to kind of shout, ‘Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!’,” says Hustwit.
“Rams’ aesthetic, I think, is just the opposite. It’s about being in the background until it’s needed. An object can do its job, and then go back to the background again.”
Rams and Apple
Rams’ touch can be seen when comparing Braun products with iconic Apple designs.
Hustwit says Steve Jobs and now, Apple’s current design director, Jony Ive, were heavily influenced by Rams.
“The iPhone and the first iPod were really influenced by one of Rams’ radio designs from the 1950s, and everything from the Macbook to to the iMac has some sort of Rams’ DNA in it,” he says.
“It’s interesting because he doesn’t have any of these things. Actually, he does have an iPhone that Jony and the Apple design team gave him. It’s on his desk, it’s like a paperweight, he doesn’t use the phone.”
‘Less but better’
In the opening scene of the film, Rams is reading and typing a statement on his red Olivetti Valentine typewriter in which he says something like: “The time of thoughtless design for thoughtless consumption is over.”
That was from a speech Rams gave at a design event in New York in 1975.
“They always built these things as if you were going to keep them for the rest of your life,” says Hustwit.
“I think what happened in the 70s and 80s was a lot of product design got more marketing-driven. It was about: ‘OK, what’s the new thing this season? What’s the new hairdryer or the new blender?'”
Hustwit believes Rams eventually left Braun because “he was tired of designing the same thing over and over again for no reason”.
“He doesn’t feel like he’s responsible [for consumerism], but I think he definitely feels like he had a role in getting to where we are now.
“I think he looks at our modern world of throwaway products and hyper-consumerism in horror, really. They were trying to make honest products that would last a lifetime.
“That’s something that is not the case anymore.”
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