“The right methodology is the key to success in many areas of life. This is also true for design—within limits.”
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“It goes without saying that we live with Vitsoe furniture systems; first, because I have only ever designed furniture that I myself would like to have, and second, getting to know the systems in daily use allows me to better recognise where they might be improved or developed further.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“Functionally oriented design of this kind has always been strongly influenced by technological development, and will continue to be so in the future. The Braun pocket radios that we designed at the end of the 1950s would not have been possible without the new transistor technology at the time. Transistors were not only far smaller than valves, they also required much less power. That meant that for the first time it was possible to make a radio receiver that you could literally put in your pocket.”
— Dieter Rams Primary source“Life is our dictionary.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Disputed“In comparing the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well be read by proxy, if we had good proxies.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source