How Today’s Minimal Design Was Influenced by One Man
And his design ethos
We don’t often stop to admire a toothbrush. Or a calculator. Or the satisfying click of a well-designed radio dial.
They’re just… there. Doing their job. Invisibly, dependably.
And yet, behind some of these beautifully unremarkable objects is a un-flashy philosophy that reshaped the entire landscape of product design.
You don’t notice it because that’s the point. Good design doesn’t announce itself.
We live in a time where nearly everything is trying too hard. Your fridge wants to message you. Your coffee machine has a touchscreen. Your vacuum cleaner‘s got an attitude.
But there was a time, not that long ago, when things were different.
Where It Started
Not in Silicon Valley. Not in a Paris showroom. But in a small workshop in post-war Germany.
In the middle of all the post-war reconstruction stood a man with glasses, a calm demeanor, and an architecture degree.
He never became a celebrity. Well, not to the extent he should have.
He didn’t launch his own lifestyle brand. He worked for a large German company. But if you’ve ever admired the sleek lines of an iPhone, or the satisfying logic of a good interface, you’ve felt his influence.
The Designer Who Influenced Minimal Design More Than Anyone Else
His name is Dieter Rams.
Rams wasn’t a rockstar. He was the kind of nerdy person who showed up to work early, sketched obsessively, edited ruthlessly, and went home to think about how to do it better tomorrow.
For over three decades at the German company Braun. Rams quietly shaped a visual and functional language that would ripple across the globe.
He didn’t believe in trends. In fact, he actively avoided them. Fashion fades, he said. So does clutter. What’s left, if you do it right, is clarity.
And he wrote it down. Ten principles. Ten short, almost boring rules for what good design should be. This is the most famous list of design principles ever created.
Here it is:
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.
“As little design as possible.” In an age when everything is trying to do more, be more, shout louder — Rams said: less. Make it simple. Make it clear. Make it right. Then stop.
His products for Braun —, radios, clocks, speakers, appliances — didn’t just look good. They felt right. They did what they were supposed to do, and then they got out of the way.
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His Influence
Designers like Jonathan Ive at Apple didn’t just admire Rams, they studied him. Copied him.
Look at the original iPod, and you’ll see echoes of Braun’s 1958 T3 radio. That minimalist, grid-aligned sensibility? That’s straight from Rams’ playbook.
Rams wasn’t a tech guy. He didn’t care about innovation for innovation’s sake. He cared about ethics. He asked hard questions like: Should we even be making this? Is this adding anything to the world? Is this sustainable? He was thinking about circular design and environmental impact before most companies had even figured out recycling bins.
That’s the part of Rams that gets lost sometimes. The philosopher behind the function. The designer who said, We have enough stuff. What we need is better stuff.
In that sense, Rams wasn’t just a designer. He was a minimalist ethicist with a pencil.
There’s a great moment in the documentary Rams by Gary Hustwit, where the man himself looks around his home — a tranquil, light-filled space in Kronberg, Germany — and says, “I have too many things.” This from the man whose whole life was built on paring things down.
The Bottom Line
Next time you pick up a product that feels just right, no unnecessary buttons, no blinking lights, no fluff, know this:
That elegance didn’t happen by accident. Dieter Rams spent a lifetime designing this way.
And much of the design world still follows him today.