Dieter Rams Quotes

You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.

One of the most significant design principles is to omit the unimportant in order to emphasize the important.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Having small touches of colour makes it more colourful than having the whole thing in colour.

Good design is long-lasting! It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated.

Good design means as little design as possible.

Good design is thorough, down to the last detail.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Question everything generally thought to be obvious.

As designers we have a great responsibility.

I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.

Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

We designers, we don't work in a vacuum.

We need business people. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with.

Good design is honest.

My worry is that the world is becoming more chaotic every day.

My excitement is that more people paying attention to 'Less but better' could help solve our growing problems.

Nothing works without details. They are everything, the baseline of quality

My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.

Good design makes a product understandable.

Design is a thinking process that starts in the head and with sketches.

Thinking cannot be done by a computer.

Good design is innovative Gives a product utility Is aesthetic Makes a product easy to understand Is unobtrusive Is honest Is long-lived Is consistent down to the smallest detail Protects the environment Good design is as little design as possible.

I am not an early bird. I go to bed normally between midnight and 1 oclock, so it is understandable that I cannot be an early bird. I wake up around 9 oclock.

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable.

Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

There is a lot of bad architecture. What we need more is to look at how our landscape should look in the next decades.

An honest design communicates solely the functions and values it offers.

It does not attempt to manipulate buyers and users with promises it cannot keep.

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 unobtrusive 6. Good design is honest 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

The design should make the product speak to you.

I sit, I think, I make some drawings. As a designer, you cannot retire totally.

Design should not dominate things, should not dominate people.

It should help people. That's its role.

People react positively when things are clear and understandable.

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

As designers we have a great responsibility.

Good designers must always be avant-gardists, always one step ahead of the times. They should – and must – question everything generally thought to be obvious. They must have an intuition for people’s changing attitudes. For the reality in which they live, for their dreams, their desires, their worries, their needs, their living habits. They must also be able to assess realistically the opportunities and bounds of technology.

All too much of the man-made is ugly, inefficient, depressing chaos.

I hate everything that is driven by fashion.

Things which are different in order simply to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.

I don't like computers. I still like to do my drawings by hand.

My heart belongs to the details. I actually always found them to be more important than the big picture. Nothing works without details. They are everything, the baseline of quality.

Products have to be designed in a way that they are comprehensible.