Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles Of Good Design Explained

Dieter Rams, is the iconic German product designer who’s work for Braun in the 1960′s many credit to influencing the sleek and minimal design language used by Apple today. In 1995, Rams wrote a brief list of principles that he saw as being the elements of good design. The list, much like his design work is not filled with extraneous detail.

For their Journal of Design and Culture, the team at Inksie sent out one of Rams’ principles to a writer and an illustrator to add some current context to what good design is. Over the last two months, they have been featuring the responses. Last week the project wrapped up with the posting of the last essay and illustration. You can read the entire series here.

All of these are great reads and as a sample of what you’ll find, we’ve pulled out a section of Shane Bzdok’s essay on ‘Good design is innovative.’ to share here.

‘Better’ does have a place in innovation. In fact, I hardly think creating something new yet less effective (or less efficient) should qualify as innovative. That said, in our efforts to create new and better, we should also be aware of the value of failing. Woody Allen said, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” Sometimes the only way to discover something new is to try and fail. And keep trying we must. I believe it is our responsibility as designers and, most importantly, as thinkers to continually strive to create something that is not only better, but also more than different.