Good design is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
Dieter RamsRead
My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of simplicity in design, focusing on what truly matters.
Dieter Rams advocates for minimalism in design, suggesting that by eliminating unnecessary elements, one can highlight and enhance the essential aspects of an object or idea. This approach not only improves functionality but also brings clarity and beauty to the design, allowing users to appreciate the core purpose without distractions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a design presentation to emphasize the importance of minimalism.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.
Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
Design should not dominate things, should not dominate people. It should help people. That's its role.
My heart belongs to the details. I actually always found them to be more important than the big picture. Nothing works without details. They are everything, the baseline of quality.
Things which are different in order simply to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.
We won't do something different for different's sake. Designers cave in to marketing, to the corporate agenda, which is sort of, 'Oh, it looks like the last one; can't we make it look different?' Well no, there's no reason to.
Often the most important moment in the design process is figuring out what the right question is.
Throughout this book, we've been evangelizing simplicity, but ironically, the practice of simplicity is not simple. It is easy to build a bulky design by adding layer upon layer of navigation and features; it's much more difficult to create simple, graceful designs. Paring designs to essential elements while maintaining elegance and functionality requires courage and discipline.
I am passionate about what design can do - how far it can support the new ideas and the new ways of living of this 21st Century. Good design accelerates this exciting future where manufacturing is local, materials and processes are cradle to cradle, business models are both socially and financially driven.
Design must be an innovative, highly creative, cross-disciplinary tool responsive to the needs of men. It must be more research-oriented, and we must stop defiling the earth itself with poorly-designed objects and structures.
If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.
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