With a Coventry Society visit to the Vitsœ factory in Leamington coming up this month, it seems an ideal opportunity to look at the remarkable designer whose ideas shaped both the company’s furniture and modern industrial design.
German designer Dieter Rams (born 20 May 1932) is regarded as one of the most influential industrial designers of the twentieth century. Best known for his work with the consumer electronics company Braun and the furniture manufacturer Vitsœ, his philosophy of simplicity, functionality and sustainability continues to influence designers around the world.
Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, Rams developed an early appreciation of craftsmanship through his grandfather, who was a carpenter. After studying interior design at the Wiesbaden School of Arts and Crafts, he trained as an architect during the post-war reconstruction of Germany.
In 1955, encouraged by a friend, Rams applied for a position with Braun, then an ambitious manufacturer of electrical products. Hired by brothers Erwin and Artur Braun, he was initially tasked with modernising the company’s interiors. During his first year he produced a strikingly modern showroom design that included the first concept of a wall-mounted, track-based storage system.
Rams soon asked Erwin Braun if he could develop the furniture idea for another company. Braun immediately agreed, remarking that it would even help sell Braun’s radios. As a result, Vitsoe+Zapf was founded in 1959, and the following year launched what would become one of the company’s defining products – the 606 Universal Shelving System.
Meanwhile, Rams had begun designing Braun’s products as well as its interiors. One of his earliest successes was the SK 4 radiogram, whose innovative transparent Perspex lid earned it the affectionate nickname “Snow White’s Coffin”. In 1961, at the age of just 29, he became Braun’s Head of Design, a position he held for the next 34 years.
A single design philosophy
Rams’ work for Braun and Vitsœ was never separate. The clean, functional design language developed for Braun’s radios and hi-fi equipment carried directly into the furniture. The 606 shelving system, for example, was designed to accommodate Braun’s compact Audio 1 hi-fi system, allowing furniture and electronics to work together as a unified whole.
Rams believed that the best products emerged from long-term collaboration within companies rather than from individual designers working in isolation. Even after retiring from Braun in 1997, he remained closely involved with Vitsœ, working alongside its British managing director, Mark Adams, for more than four decades.
“Less, but better”
By the 1970s Rams had become increasingly concerned about the growing culture of waste and consumerism. In a lecture delivered in New York in 1976, he warned of the world’s finite natural resources and argued that designers had a responsibility to create products that would last. His comments anticipated many of the ideas that later became central to the environmental movement.
He also questioned the increasing visual clutter of modern life, describing it as “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises”. Reflecting on his own work, he asked a simple but profound question: Is my design good design?
His answer became the famous Ten Principles of Good Design, distilled into the phrase that has become synonymous with his work: “Less, but better.”
According to Rams, good design should:
- be innovative without pursuing novelty for its own sake;
- make products genuinely useful;
- be aesthetically pleasing because beauty enhances everyday life;
- be intuitive and easy to understand;
- remain unobtrusive, allowing users rather than products to take centre stage;
- be honest, never pretending to offer more than it does;
- be durable rather than fashionable;
- demonstrate care and precision in every detail;
- conserve resources and minimise environmental impact; and
- contain as little design as possible by concentrating only on what is essential.
Although formulated nearly fifty years ago, these principles remain remarkably relevant in an age increasingly concerned with sustainability and reducing waste.
An enduring legacy
Today Dieter Rams is recognised as one of the giants of modern industrial design. His influence extends far beyond Braun and Vitsœ, with many contemporary designers acknowledging their debt to his ideas.
His furniture designs have found a permanent place in major museum collections. The 606 Universal Shelving System is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while the 620 Chair Programme is part of the permanent collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. His work has also featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the touring exhibition Less and More, which visited Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul, London and San Francisco.
Through Vitsœ, Rams’ furniture continues to be manufactured and sold in more than 90 countries. The company remains the sole worldwide licensee of his furniture designs and continues to uphold the principles of longevity, adaptability and sustainability that have defined its products for over sixty years.
In 2018, filmmaker Gary Hustwit introduced Rams to a new generation through the acclaimed documentary Rams, featuring a soundtrack by Brian Eno. Four years earlier, Rams and his wife, photographer Ingeborg Rams, had established the Rams Foundation to promote the values they had championed throughout their lives: thoughtful design, careful use of resources and products that serve people rather than fashion.
Rams also designed his own home in Kronberg, Germany, with architect Rudolf Kramer in 1971. Furnished throughout with Vitsœ products, it remains his home today and has been listed for its architectural significance. Protected by the Rams Foundation, it stands as perhaps the clearest expression of his lifelong belief that good design should be timeless, practical and built to last.
For visitors to the Vitsœ factory, these ideas are not simply part of the company’s history. They remain at the heart of how its furniture is designed and made today, demonstrating that Rams’ philosophy of “Less, but better” is as relevant now as it was more than half a century ago.
Coventry Society Visit
Coventry Society members will have the opportunity to see these principles put into practice during our visit to the Vitsœ production building in Leamington Spa, where the company’s distinctive furniture continues to be manufactured using the same philosophy of quality, longevity and adaptability that Dieter Rams established more than sixty years ago.