Transdisciplinary Design

As Little Design as Possible

Posted on November 12, 2018

Deiter Rams was an architect turned product designer that made not only incredible impacts at Braun, a German products company, in the late 1950s through 1970s, but also, in many ways, fathered a modern design practice. Rams’ “10 Principles of Good Design[1]” are as follows:

1. Good design is innovative
2. Good design makes a product useful
3. Good design is aesthetic
4. Good design makes a product understandable
5. Good design is honest
6. Good design in unobtrusive
7. Good design is long-lasting
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail
9. Good design is environmentally friendly
10. Good design is as little design as possible

 

In a talk at the Karlsruhe German Designers’ Day in 1977 Rams explained, “Product design is the organization of the product in its entirety so that it fulfills its respective function as well as possible. At the same time, this design must meet the factual terms and conditions under which the product can be brought on to the market”[2] This statement shows Rams’ glorification of function—design is simply the essential factors to function and ability to mass produce. Functionalism can be understood as the North Star of good design for Rams.

 

However, now, decades later, we listen to and read the words of Bruno Latour in his lecture for the Networks of Design meeting in 2008. Latour critiques modern notions of design saying that in this school of thought, design is often taken as “one branch of an alternative—look not only at function but also design.”[3]. Latour goes on to acknowledge that in this school of thought functionalism is and should be approximated as closely as possible in design. Through this a relationship becomes clear: Rams’ 1o Principles of Good Design is the kind of design practice Latour is critiquing. Rams exemplifies what Latour paints as an ordered, organized and determinist vision of what design should be. It is 10 steps and it will ensure, in every case, good design. However, Latour introduces a concept of complexity that pulls Rams’ ability to reduce so definitely into question.

 

Latour explains that time has not necessarily brought forth tools to deal with complexity, but even as that is so, it cannot and should not be ignored but rather perpetually pursued. Latour writes, “yet, four hundred years after the invention of perspective drawing, three hundred years after projective geometry, fifty years after the development of CAD computer screens, we are still utterly unable to draw together, to simulate, to materialize, to approximate, to fully model to scale, what a thing in all of its complexity, is.”[4] In his conclusion Latour calls for constant revisiting of modern designs as technology ensues in hopes of allowing complexity to be accounted for rather than isolating social, economic, and systematic difficulties from process or product.

 

It must be noted that although Rams was creating practicing these principles starting in the late 1950s and publishing them as a collection in the 1970s and Latour is giving this pointed lecture in 2008, my argument is not that time has proven Rams principles antiquated and inadequate because time has revealed this invaluable insight. I rather wish to spark an exploration among designers and readers that in light of Latour’s push back on the role and type of design that should be practiced, or rather “good design,” what does it mean when multinational companies like Apple are at present adopting and guiding their products according to Rams’ design principles?” Rams’ design dogma has a lasting and possibly even strengthening influence on the world. What might happen “as little design as possible” is the backbone to the future of our normatively complex world and this increasingly complex time?

 

-CC

 

[1] Sophie Lovell, As Little Design as Possible: The Work of Dieter Rams (London: Phaidon, 2011).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk)” (lecture, Networks of Design for the Design History Society, Cornwall, Falmouth, September 3, 2008).

[4]  Ibid.