The story of Dieter Rams, a “good” design and his influence on Alxedo (2/2)
Do you know who Dieter Rams is, his concept of design and what it means to us?
If you didn’t read our last week’s blog post about Dieter Rams and the first 5 of his 10 design principles, we recommend you to have a look at our previous post as well: The story of Dieter Rams, a “good” design and his influence on Alxedo (1/2)
In today’s blog post, we are introducing the remaining 5 design principles and go a bit more into detail about how Dieter Rams influenced other important design companies. As already mentioned in our last blogpost the product design of several other companies such as Apple was heavily influenced by Dieter Rams. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive have merely adopted and refined the design language which was established by Rams in his time at Braun.
Apple’s simplicity and intuitive design are core aspects of their design language which is highly appreciated by all their customers. A range of their products such as the iMac, iPhone and iPod were primarily based on the 10 design principles of Dieter Rams. Nevertheless, those principles did not only laid the foundation for the design of Apple also other companies as Bang&Olufsen and Vitsœ drew on his combination of a clean form with unrestricted functionality in their design process of products and devices.
In the following, we would like to introduce a few Apple products you all might know and compare them with their design foundations — a variety of Braun products designed and created by Dieter Rams.
It is undoubtedly that Rams’ design philosophy and sophistication have had a strong impact on the design of many Apple products. However, Dieter Rams always responded to people stating companies would copy his design, that he just feels honoured that people perceive his design language as one worth to recreate. Maybe it was also his desired answer to the question he constantly asked himself if his design is a “good” design.
Eventually, we would like to continue with the second half of his famous 10 design principles.
Like in the last blog post we are discussing those by using our Alxedo Smart Water Purifier as an example to explain the remaining 5 design principles:
6. Good design is honest:
It does not make a product appear more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. The grey tone of our purifier was carefully chosen to perfectly blend into your kitchen. The combination of a waiver of any elevations like physical buttons and the round shape highlight its minimalistic design. The literal honesty of our purifier lays under the hood and is represented by the accessibility of all water-related information in our application.
7. Good design is long-lasting:
It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Our choice of colour and shape give our purifier a timeless appearance. Water is as essential as air for life on our planet and therefore should never be a question of fashion. Furthermore, the main objective of all our business initiatives is environmental friendliness and sustainability. The reduction of carbon emission and plastic waste is a core aspect of our mission at Alxedo.
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail:
Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the customer. Our purifier is designed to be as customer-friendly as possible. The purification of water just needs you to open our dedicated tap and perfectly fresh and pure water will flow. The exchange process of the cartridges is an easy self-replacement process that does not require any tools or professional support. In addition to that, we deliver the cartridges for free to your place whenever you need a replacement. For us design didn’t stop at the device it continued with designing a perfect service for you.
9. Good design is environmentally friendly:
The design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. The purification of water is more necessary than ever. In 2018 the world’s population bought more than 482 billion plastic bottles wherefrom not even 25% were recycled. Your contribution through using our smart water purifier is the badly needed reduction of plastic waste. Through our application, we would like to give you something back for giving back to our planet by collecting sustainability points you can later use for discounts in your favourite stores.
10. Good design is as little as possible:
A phrase coined by Dieter Rams is “less but better” or to say as simple as possible but not simpler. By removing all physical buttons, designing an app that is as intuitive as possible and our dedicated tap affording pure drinking water in the easiest way is our understanding of simplicity.
The Incorporation of all 10 design principles is our approach to honour Dieter Rams the way Apple and Bang&Olufsen did it before. We hope Dieter Rams will consider our design as a “good” design and feels equally honoured that we respected his principles the way Apple did it.
We would like to invite you to give us your opinion on our design and product by leaving a comment on what makes a design a “good” design for you.
More information about us: www.alxedo.mx
Stay safe and see you next week!
Your Alxedo Team
