Dieter Rams
A Lifetime of Design
1930
Born in Wiesbaden, Germany
1953
Graduated with honors from Wiesbaden School of Art and after joined Otto Apel’s architecture office in Frankfurt, Germany
1955
Recruited by the German consumer electronics manufacturer Braun as an architect and interior designer
1956
Designed, in collaboration with mentors from the Ulm School of Design, the SK4 radio and record player which was among his first assignments for Braun
1957
Produced his first furniture design for Otto Zapf
1 Prototype RZ 57 cabinet, the first system furniture set, designed by Dieter Rams for Otto Zapf in 1957 2 SK 5 Phonosuper radiogram by Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot (1958), the successor to the groundbreaking SK 4
1959
Niels Vitsœ and Otto Zapf founded the company Vitsœ+Zapf (today simply, Vitsœ) to realize the furniture designs of Dieter Rams
1960
Designs The 606 Universal Shelving System for Vitsœ, a timeless system that affords endless possibilities and is still in production today
1961
Appointed Head of Design at Braun
1 HL 70 personal fan designed by Reinhold Weiss and Jurgen Greubel, 1971 2 ET 44 calculators designed by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs, 1978; this calculator design was the inspiration for Apple's iPhone calculator application 3 ABR 21 clock radio by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs, 1978
1968
Appointed Director of Braun Design Department;
Awarded Honorary Royal Designer for Industry of the Royal Society of Arts, United Kingdom for distinguished design in furniture and light engineering products
1978
Designs the ET 44 LCD calculator with Dietrich Lubs which will later directly influence the Apple iPhone’s calculator application among many other Apple products
1981
Appointed Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg, Germany
1985
Rams' Ten Principles of Good Design is published, after a decade of considering what qualities were most important
Ten Principles of Good Design by Dieter Rams
Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design makes a product understandable
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally friendly
Good design is as little design as possible
1988–1998
Appointed Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg, Germany
1992
Awarded the IKEA prize
1995
Appointed Executive Director of Braun Corporate Identity Affairs
1997
Retired from Braun
1 AB 1 alarm clocks designed by Dietrich Lubs, 1987 2 Ab 314 Voice Memo alarm clock designed by Dietrich Lubs, 1995