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

2007

Granted Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany for his life's achievements in design

2008

Less is More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams exhibition opens at the Suntori Museum in Osaka, Japan later traveling to Tokyo, London, and San Francisco

2013

Presented London Design Medal Lifetime Achievement Award

2014

Receives The International Compasso D'Oro Award For Lifetime Achievements

2017

Dieter Rams, a retrospective of the designer's work opens at JF Chen, Los Angeles

Dieter Rams: The JF Chen Collection

Auction 12 July 2018

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