I’ve been reading a lot about design lately and noticed that the Design Museum, which I love is closing for a few months at the end of June 2016, to relocate.
When I was studying for my MA in creativity I used to love wandering around the Museum and exploring some of the ideas we’d been studying, and definitions of creativity to the displays and exhibitions. One of the favourite discoveries I made was about the work of Dieter Rams, who I knew nothing about before. Dieter Rams 10 principles of good design apply as brilliant criteria for creativity way beyond design.
Maybe you’re reading this book on an iPhone or a Mac, whilst sitting comfortably on a simple, well-designed chair. Perhaps you used an Oral B toothbrush this morning. As one of the most influential industrial designers of the 20th century, Dieter Rams ‘less is more’ mantra is all around us. Under his creative direction, the team at German consumer electronics manufacturer Braun was responsible for many seminal designs – sleek, high-end and minimalist products from alarm clocks to record players. Heavily influenced by his interest in architecture and the Bauhaus movement, his designs are stripped back to the essentials, with no flourishes and little colour. Though Rams himself says that he did not intend his ten design principles to be “set in stone forever”, many of them are still highly relevant. Use these principles as a checklist for product design ideas and far beyond:
1 Good design is innovative.
2 Good design makes a product useful.
3 Good design is aesthetic.
4 Good design helps to understand a product.
5 Good design is unobtrusive
6 Good design is honest.
7 Good design is durable.
8 Good design is consequent to the last detail.
9 Good design is concerned with environment.
10 Good design is as little design as possible.
What do you think about the principles and how they might apply to your work?
Source: www.designmuseum.org
If you want to find out more about to apply design thinking to your creative work check our open courses.