“A record player, a kitchen appliance, a slide projector or a shaver with disorderly, chaotic, confusing or overloaded design cannot fulfil its functions. The harmony of a design too, its aesthetic quality, also has a functional purpose—it facilitates a positive emotional relationship between a device and its user.”
Dieter Rams
Less but better (Primary source)
Less but Better isn’t a comprehensive catalog of Dieter Rams’ work or a complete history of Braun. Instead, it’s something more valuable: a deep dive into the thinking behind some of the twentieth century’s most enduring product designs.
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“Less, but better.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“I once said that my aim is to leave out everything superfluous in order to allow the essential to come through.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“The right methodology is the key to success in many areas of life. This is also true for design—within limits.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“The design of products has a duty to contribute to a sustainable reduction in the number of products as a whole. Therefore the goal for product culture in the coming decades will be ‘less, but better’.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“Coolness is the greatest quality in a man destined to command.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
— Thucydides Primary source“The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
— Benjamin Franklin Disputed