Back in the late 1970s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him: “An impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.”  Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? His answer is expressed in his ten principles for good design.

To understand what makes design good, we first must analyse how designers understand good design. You can do this by exploring the ‘Ten principles of good design’ by Dieter Rams (Vitsoe 2017). 

Learning Goals:

• Explore the principles of good design developed by Dieter Rams
• Identify the impact of Dieter Rams on past present and future designs
• Analyse Dieter Rams objects to identify how the principles of good design are applied
• Consider how the principles of good design can be used to develop design criteria essential for measuring the success of design ideas