25 February 2009

Ten Commandments of Design



The Ten Commandments of Design by Dieter Rams. Dieter was the head of design at Braun from 1961 until 1995. During his tenure as Design Director he wrote these Ten Commandments for good design in the early 1980s. The list of ten is as follows:
1. Good design is innovative.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
4. Good design helps a product to be understood.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
6. Good design is honest.
7. Good design is durable.
8. Good design is thorough to the last detail.
9. Good design is concerned with the environment.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.
To read Dieter Rams complete explanations for these Ten Commandments visit the Vitsoe site at this link.

I say "AMEN" to all. Now if we can only get the clients to understand and go along.

(via Design Observer, via Kottke)

2 comments:

Jen said...

I like #5...good design is unobtrusive! I have encountered innumerable obtrusive designs and I wish I would have had this concise commandment to shame it at the time.

Carla | Letterhead Printing said...

I'm going for #4 - Designs should speak for itself by just presenting something in front of your viewers they can easily tell what you are there for.