AIGA and Phaidon Present: An Excerpt from "Dieter Rams: The Complete Works"

Phaidon presents an essay by Dieter Rams, from Dieter Rams: The Complete Works, the ultimate reference on one of the most influential product designers of all time, published in Fall 2020.

Design is a process, and industrial design is teamwork with many people involved. I have been fortunate to have encountered and worked with many exceptional personalities in my life – at Braun and Vitsoe and also at innumerable conferences and gatherings. There have been so many inspiring conversations with so many people. I have always treasured the global nature of such encounters, because it is only through international dialogue and collaboration that we will be able to shape our world wisely for the future. Any form of nationalism has always been alien to me. We all have different qualities, and the goal has to be to bring them together constructively. 

Design is not just about the formal design of our Dingwelt, our ‘world of things’; it determines the life of every individual and how we all live with one another. Design can promote social togetherness – but it can also damage it. This is why the responsibility carried by designers is so great. Look at all the things we have designed in the last 150 years alone: telephones, cars, radios, televisions, computers and smartphones. Marshall McLuhan was right in saying that the ‘medium is the message’, in that it both extends and restricts our possibilities. But I am of the opinion that the key issue here is how these extensions are designed. And it will not surprise you when I plead for a degree of restraint in this respect. 

Some years ago, I set a series of questions regarding the design of industrial products. We should ask ourselves, for example, whether the product we are designing is really necessary, or if something already exists that does the job well enough, if not better. Does it really help to enrich our lives or does it only appeal to ideas of status? Is it repairable? Is it durable? Easy to use and flexible in its use? Can I master it easily or does the new product dominate me? That last question is one I find particularly relevant today. The primary insight I have gained in my sixty years as a designer, and through my experiences with both companies and end users, is a simple one: ‘Less, but better.’

We should surround ourselves with fewer things, but better things. This is not a constraint, it is an advantage, which allows us more space for real life. The same applies to my ten principles of good design – they are not commandments, just a friendly recommendation to think again.

Free yourself from the ballast of too many things. A willingness for order – for simple, calm, restrained forms with longer, more aesthetic, useful lives – seems to me to be of far more importance than constantly trying to invent the next best thing. However, good design does not come through the fulfilment of demands alone. Good everyday design should always be design that speaks for itself. It can seldom succeed, but when it does, special products such as these are a necessary incentive for the design of our whole environment. They are the benchmarks for the future. 

–Dieter Rams

From Dieter Rams: The Complete Works

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