Dieter Rams: Good design is as little design as possible
10. Good design is as little design as possible
Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.
According to an article on the Design Museum website, “As a smoker, Rams loved to design lighters as ‘small sculptural objects’ which should be ‘a pleasure to look at and to use.’ His chief challenge with the T2 was identifying the precise place on the side of the cylinder at which the thumb could apply the greatest pressure to the magnetic ignition pad” (1).
“The Braun Cylindric is part of the permanent collection of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York” (2).
Dieter Rams, Braun Cylindric T2 Lighter, (1968)
Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iI8qckk8NXY/TELW9bo_HTI/AAAAAAAABVM/pEhhcxLWvfc/s200/braun_lighter.jpg
To end this series on Dieter Rams’s 10 Principles for Good Design here’s a video featuring comments made by Design Museum’s Director Deyan Sudjic and designer Michael Czerwinsk during Design Museum’s 2009 Dieter Rams retrospective “Less and More - The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams”.
References
1. Design Museum. (2007). Dieter Rams Industrial Designer (1932-). Retrieved from: http://designmuseum.org/design/dieter-rams
2. Table Lighters Collectors’ Guide. (2010). Braun Cylindric T2 Table Lighter, Dieter Rams, 1968. Retreived from: http://table-lighters.blogspot.com/2010/07/braun-cylindric-t2-table-lighter-dieter.htm
