dieter Rams is one of the world's
greatest designers of everyday objects
his mind which in other eras might have
been employed making sculptures for
altarpieces or precision scales for
diamond traders is devoted to producing
carefully and beautifully made
calculators shelving office chairs TVs
radios watches record players egg
beaters fruit juices video cameras and
electric shavers his career has been
extraordinarily successful the company
he made famous Braun was when he joined
a medium-sized manufacturer of radios in
Germany and grew to become a global
Titan of consumer goods production as
head of design Ramsey's work has ended
up in hundreds of millions of homes why
is design important partly because
poorly designed things slow us down and
sadden us the stapler that doesn't work
the bag of walnuts that doesn't open the
TV remote control that hasn't thought
hard enough about what real people are
actually like all our symbols of
miscommunication and lack of empathy Ram
shows us that capitalism need not
produce poor quality products his life
and work are a guide to the values that
we might make more central to our lives
and our businesses there are five
underlying lessons to be taken from his
work Rams wanted to reduce everything
back to just a few things that matter
most you can see this in one of his
early products the PC 3sv radio there
are many more things which could be done
with a radio one could add in bass and
tenor controls separate AM and FM dials
an alarm clock an output cord for larger
speakers and so on but Rams pushed in
the opposite direction
he made the on/off switch a part of the
volume control which hadn't been done
before and which people argued against
but the end result is deeply satisfying
you have to be confident to dare to be
simple with radios or in other areas of
life for example in an expensive
restaurant there's pressure to order
something elaborate even though deep
down we might actually just feel like
ordering cheese on toast being simple
can make you vulnerable but simplicity
is really an achievement it follows from
a hard-won clarity about what matters
when designing a toothbrush Ram spent
weeks thinking
about an experimenting with a ratio of
the handle to the bristles the width of
the handle the number of ridges for the
thumb to grip on to and so on but this
large amount of work is nowhere obvious
in a final product this follows from a
principle of modesty which Rams lives by
and which goes back to the Roman poet
Horace the art lies in concealing the
art Ram's has modesty as a person
although he originally trained as an
architect in a carpenter he wanted to
make products that improve people's
lives rather than design spectacular
things to promote his own glory the
products he designed are all imbued with
modesty they don't try to attract your
attention for no reason they're happy to
sit in the background and do the work
such modesty stems from a lack of
anxiety about being ignored
one of Ramsey's principles is that an
object should be easy to live with and
so easy to encounter for the first time
that you could get rid of the
instruction manuals Ramsay's products
never come with any instructions the
object should just be obvious from the
beginning this ability to create a
welcoming experience for another person
is a great skill not many people can do
it well however because it derives from
an unusual source remembering what it's
like to be distressed in his work Rams
is in touch with what it's like to be
lost to feel abandoned and frustrated
although his work looks serene it comes
from knowing how easily we get angry and
muddled and ashamedly confused by
instructions which any normal adult
should we feel be able to understand but
we're more like simpletons than we
pretend to be we actually want things to
be easy and user friendly but we don't
readily tell other people that we're a
bit stupid although everyone is in many
ways which is why it's the job of the
designer or the hotel yeah or the
customer feedback agent to remember with
tenderness the fact that were all
childlike in a little bit lost
Rams is like a parent he's making the
world a bit friendlier for us Rams
is not making things for actual
six-year-olds rather he mixes insights
about our childlike nature within a
context of elegance and dignity for
example this calculator comes with color
buttons to show you whether main
functions are remembering that everyone
is more easily confused and they pretend
to be should be a basis for the reform
of architecture hotels street design
websites car
manufacture phone companies and books
Rams was classic which means he tapped
into things that don't change this means
we don't have to buy new things all the
time a classic book for instance is
lavash will cause Maxim's it's a classic
because the essential lessons in it are
still useful for us to hear many
hundreds of years after it was written
overall the global economy needs to be
more classic the fashion industry to
take what is currently the least classic
business could play more to our need to
have items of clothing that are
versatile and dignified in many context
and less inclined to change every
passing year we suffer from a romantic
ideology which tends to emphasize and
value what is new Ram's in contrast is
interested in what is permanent his goal
was to create products that wouldn't go
out of date so fast so we wouldn't have
to throw them away so rapidly if you
cared about bringing more attention and
care to the little things of everyday
life in 1650 you might have gone into
painting the Dutch painter Johannes
Vermeer was an advocate for paying more
attention to the humble objects of
everyday life in his famous painting the
little Street he portrays a life
governed by simplicity and modesty Ram's
values the same things that Vermeer does
but he's turned these values into
products that we can use in our own
lives design has a big advantage over
art it's available for everyone we might
only be able to see Vermeer as work once
or twice every few years whereas
Ramsey's work we can buy and live with
everyday all the intensity focus high
standards and the pursuit of integrity
that is found in art can be brought into
the realm of everyday design and this is
where it stands more of a chance of
affecting people as they check the time
or press the snooze button on their
alarm grams shows us what good business
could be elegant long-lasting dignified
all capitalism should be like this it's
a sign of a problem that Ram's feel so
unique ideally all entrepreneurs would
study his work and devote themselves to
the values of simplicity and modesty at
the heart of his worldview Ramsey's
mindset is currently very unusual we
hope it will become mainstream and
widespread
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