In 1963, Dieter Rams designed a leather handbag as a gift for his wife, Ingeborg. ‘A very private design,’ he described the accessory, which for almost half a century existed in an edition of one, out of reach from even the most diehard of collectors. True to form, its design was meticulous – a sharply defined leather shell with a simple top handle, evocative of those used to house electronics (Rams was collaborating with German manufacturer Braun at the time; the design was born from prototying leather cases for shavers).

Many of these prototypes were crafted in Offenbach am Main, a city just outside of Frankfurt, Germany which has long been synonymous with leatherwork. It is there, where Tsatsas – a leather goods company known for creating accessories with a sharp, architectural eye – was founded by Esther and Dimitros Tsatsas in 2012, building on the latter’s longstanding links with the region’s signature craft (Dimitros’ father ran a bag-making studio in Offenbach for several decades). In 2018, half a century after its original design, Rams allowed Tsatsas to recreate the ‘931’ bag for sale (he admired Esther and Dimitros’ approach, and saw the reissue as a chance to pay homage to Ingeborg).

‘We have used Dieter’s ‘Ten Principles for Good Design’ as guiding tenets [since we founded the brand],’ say the pair of their longtime admiration for Rams’ work. ‘For us, as an architect and an industrial designer, these principles formulated from the mid-1970s onwards resonate deeply with our design philosophy and are easy to reconcile with Dieter’s expectations of a product: creating timeless objects with a clear design language – enduring forms without any aesthetic expiry date.’ (The latter is proved by the way that the ‘931’ bag continues to look modern over 50 years since it was first created).

‘In 2018, Britte Siepenkothen, as trustee of the Rams Foundation, seeded the idea of collaborating with Tsatsas to bring the handbag to the market,’ they explain of the way the unique collaboration came about, a story currently being told in Vitsœ’s London store in a special exhibition to coincide with London Design Festival 2025 (UK-based Vitsœ was founded by Niels Vitsoe and Otto Zapf as a means to create Rams’ furniture designs). ‘Thanks to their invitation, we are able to tell the story behind 931 within the context of Dieter’s iconic Vitsœ products. For the first time, the exhibition will present the original ‘931’ bag, as well as some of his iconic designs for Braun, which unveil the crafting process.’

On its release, Wallpaper* awarded the bag a Design Award for ‘Best Belated Design’, praising its ‘highly practical’ design and adherence to Rams’ principle that design should be ‘thorough down to the last detail’. The Tsatsas version has just a few tweaks to the original design, including a detachable shoulder strap, magnetic fastening and blue nappa lining. ‘It is so reduced and simultaneously concise that it unavoidably calls to mind Rams,’ say the pair. ‘[But] while minimalist, it also has a hidden feminine part: when opening the bag, you discover a wide, easily accessible interior with beautiful details such as a pocket mirror and a special compartment for your lipstick.’

‘I designed this bag in the same way I designed everything else, so largely based on right angles, but perhaps a little more emotionally, more personally,’ says Rams himself, who earlier this week was awarded the World Design Medal 2025. ‘Designing a handbag is undoubtedly different to designing a Braun stereo system, but I applied the same principles. It had to be functional, visually durable, and very aesthetic. Less, but better.’

In Residence at Vitsœ, Tsatsas and the 931 bag, designed by Dieter Rams,runs at Vitsœ, London until 27 September 2025.

The ‘931’ bag is available at Tsatsas’ website.

The World Design Organisation (WDO) has named Dieter Rams the recipient of the 2025 World Design Medal, recognising his profound impact on industrial design. Rams’ influence was chiefly shaped during his 34-year tenure as head of design at Braun (chronicled in a 2023 book) and through his work with Vitsoe, the furniture company he co-founded in 1959. The award was presented today (9 September 2025) as part of the World Design Congress programme in London.

Rams’ ‘Ten Principles of Good Design’ – which range from innovation and usefulness to environmental responsibility and using ‘as little design as possible’ – have inspired generations of designers and shaped countless products, from household items to digital interfaces (and were explored in a 2023 exhibition at ADI Design Museum of Milan, not to mention Rams’ guest editorship of Wallpaper’s October 2007 issue). Rams' framework remains a cornerstone for human-centred practice.

The designer, 93, is also known for championing international collaboration, and has stated, ‘Only through free, honest and collegial international dialogue and cooperation will we be able to shape our world sensibly in the future.’

‘Few designers have left a mark as indelible as Dieter Rams,’ said WDO president Thomas Garvey. ‘His unwavering commitment to design integrity has not only shaped the objects around us but also the very values of our profession. As this year’s World Design Medal laureate, WDO is honoured to recognise his enduring legacy – one that continues to challenge, inspire and elevate designers worldwide.’

Rams was selected following a public call for nominations by the World Design Medal Selection Committee, composed of members from WDO’s board of directors and senators. Established in 2017, the medal is a prestigious award honouring individuals who have made significant contributions to advancing industrial design. Past recipients include German designer Hartmut Esslinger and American designer Dr Patricia Moore.

Joining this esteemed cohort, Rams stands as one of the 20th century’s most influential design voices, having set new benchmarks for clarity, functionality and timelessness in the profession.

The work of Dieter Rams and his subsequent elevation to design god and guru is well chronicled, both in exhibitions, collections and books, including Sophie Lovell’s definitive Dieter Rams: As Little Design As Possible (2011). Klaus Kemp adds to the oeuvre with this detailed look at the company that enjoyed such a mutually beneficial relationship with Rams, Braun. 

'Braun: Designed to Keep', published by Phaidon

In Braun: Designed to Keep, published by Phaidon, Klemp considers the history and influence of this German manufacturing powerhouse. Max Braun set up his first workshop in Frankfurt in 1921 to capitalise on the rising public demand for radio. Expansion was rapid, especially after Braun focused on making high-quality components for other manufacturers to buy, and branches and factories opened across Europe. 

Subsequently co-opted in the Nazi war machine, for which the company produced flashlights, walkie-talkies and other military componentry, the Braun factory was extensively damaged by bombing. It survived to become one of the pillars of reconstruction and the introduction of the pioneering S50 electric shaver in 1950 transformed Braun’s fortunes.

Max Braun died in 1951 and his sons Artur and Erwin took over, taking the company into a new era of prominence. Domestic goods now made up a substantial proportion of its output, from electronics to kitchen appliances. The consumer revolution was under way, and together with smart marketing and presentation – some of which is reproduced here – and a focus on design, Braun became shorthand for reliable, no-nonsense modernist goods.

After a spell of collaborating on graphics and product design with Otl Eicher, Inge Aicher-Scholl and Hans Gugelot from the Ulm School of Design, the spiritual successor to the Bauhaus (the bulk of the work was done by Gugelot), the company turned to Rams, who had joined in July 1955 as a product designer. From 1961 until 1997, he was Braun’s head designer. The book covers the ins and outs of this bold decision to bring product design in-house, and how Rams’ personal philosophy of design bled into the Braun aesthetic. 

Klemp, a design curator and professor at the Ulm School, captures the company’s key products, tracking how technological advances were filtered down into mass manufacturing and how and why the Braun design aesthetic has never wavered, right up to modern day collaborations with the likes of Virgil Abloh. As well as advertising and archive imagery, there is excellent all-new photography of classics from the corporate archive. A comprehensive and covetable overview of one of the greatest modern manufacturers. 

Braun: Designed to Keep, Klaus Klemp, Phaidon, £59.95, Phaidon.com

Available from Amazon

The ADI Design Museum of Milan (ADI standing for Associazione per il Disegno Industriale) presents ‘Dieter Rams. A look back and ahead’ (until 11 June 2023), an exhibition featuring selected objects, photographs, and texts celebrating the work of the German industrial designer. For Dieter Rams, ‘Designers should always strive to improve the world’. In the second half of the 20th century, he created over 350 designs for consumer-products company Braun and furniture manufacturer Vitsoe: hundreds of thousands of people around the globe still use his creations on a daily basis.

Dieter Rams at ADI Design Museum

‘We are a research museum, that’s why we are interested in exploring its methodology,’ says Luciano Galimberti, president of ADI. ‘It’s an exhibition that addresses Rams’ methodological approach to the product. He has been erroneously classified as a minimalist: I was lucky enough to know him personally and he always tried to think in terms of archetypes, not in terms of minimal forms, and then handing them over to the imagination of other designers.’

A room at the centre of the museum condenses part of the designer’s production. The captions that accompany the products or their images, carefully translated from German into English by Rams’ expert Sophie Lovell, tell the story of objects whose knowledge reveals one’s age better than any wrinkle on the face – everyday gadgets such as Braun’s SK 4 Radio-Phonograph (1956), nicknamed Snow White’s Coffin on account of its white metal casing and transparent lid, or the nostalgic ET66 calculator (1987), and, of course, the MPZ 22 electric juicer (1972), also known as 'the citromatic'.

‘His juicer is an archetype, which he arrived at by thinking about what it means to squeeze a fruit in relation to holding an orange in your hand, its weight, and the role of the spout,’ Galimberti adds. ‘Aside from his methodological approach, Rams wished to pass on his values to future generations, with a strong desire to create a world in which to imagine and reinvent.’

Klaus Klemp curated the travelling exhibition, that has previously been shown in Frankfurt, Washington, and New York, and is set to return to Germany after its stop in Italy. In Milan, the exhibition was created in collaboration with the Design School of the local Politecnico. 

‘Dieter’s mantra is less but better. We’d say buy less, but buy better things that will last longer,’ Klemp underlines. ‘I think it's a very real point: we’re consuming more than ever before, and everyone’s talking about environmental issues, but when we look at the statistics, nothing changes, and our consumption is increasing all the time’. The curator hopes that the exhibition will encourage students and young designers to consider design beyond their aesthetic style: ‘In the video we show during the exhibition, Dieter says: “You cannot understand design, if you don’t understand people”. It’s still a very current topic.’

'Dieter Rams. A look back and ahead' is on view until 11 June 2023

ADI Design Museum
Piazza Compasso d’Oro 1
Milano

adidesignmuseum.org

We hear more and more that the younger generations are less interested in purchasing and owning things. They prefer to spend their money on experiences. Self-improving holidays, culture, live performances, eating out, eating in, yoga retreats, hiking Machu Picchu. While forensically documenting it all on social media of course. This naturally has been sending shock waves through the luxury industries. If this continues, soon nobody will be buying their products – no matter how good they are or how seductive their marketing campaigns.

But I beg to differ. I really don’t see that the love of experiences is at odds with the appreciation of well-designed, well-made goods. They are far from mutually exclusive. The stuff that surrounds the experience is still significant, if not more so. The enjoyment of a good wine is enhanced by the experience of drinking it from fine glassware. The rustle of tissue paper when you take out a new pair of socks is a pleasurable experience. Quality luggage – that should last a lifetime – makes your journey that much more pleasurable and, like your favourite watch or piece of jewellery, with time will be imbued with meaningful memories.

The best stores, the bricks and mortar sort, now offer their own sort of experiential high; part art gallery, lecture hall, social space but always dedicated to enhancing the act of retail consummation.

Of course, we all now understand the endorphin surge, the quick chemical hit, of buying stuff. ‘Unboxing’ videos go viral as we enjoy the vicarious thrill of watching other people unpeel the packaging off buried treasures. And Apple and others have redefined the art and science of cellophane and cardboard boxes, given them extraordinary levels of care and attention. But the best brands, their designers, makers and craftsmen, know that a great product has to keep delivering on an experiential level, to become part of the way we do things and enjoy things, change our behaviours and enhance our experiences.

I’m optimistic about the future of the businesses and industries that we continue to champion in Wallpaper*. This more thoughtful, well-educated and conscientious consumer is a good thing. They may well buy a little less, but they’ll be buying better. Less but better, to quote Dieter Rams, is the way forward.

Tony Chambers, Brand & Content Director

As originally featured in the March 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*228)

INFORMATION

The March 2018 issue of Wallpaper* is out now. Subscribe here

To say that knitwear is in designer Carolyn Yim’s blood would only account for some of the passion she brings to her womenswear label, Ply-Knits. Yim’s family are veterans in the knitwear manufacturing business. In addition to helping clients like Givenchy, Max Mara, Christian Dior and Ralph Lauren manufacture knitwear from their bases in Hong Kong and China today, Yim’s grandmother (and founder of the family business) most notably made an embroidered bias-cut pointelle gown for John Galliano and Dior Couture in the late ’90s.

For Ply-Knits, Yim combines both these facets of her family background to create quiet yet impactful pieces. Her poetic collections fuse technical expertise with a classic artistry, not only on the stylish surface, but on the textile level as well. Primarily made from deadstock yarn because of its superior quality, each Ply-Knits piece is designed for comfort, durability and wearability – characteristics that are all supported by the type of knit used.

For example, the label’s signature knit pant is made from a finely tuned merino wool and cashmere mix that possesses just the right tension to offer support and a sleek fit, while simultaneously being water repellent (thanks to the natural properties of wool) and armed with a sensual feel that wearers will be able to enjoy day after day.

‘We really work with the materials and make our own textiles each and every time,’ explains Yim of her detail-oriented manufacturing process, which often begins with an assessment of the vintage yarns and experimenting with different knitting and spinning techniques to create the right fabric. ‘We believe in the integrity of the textiles to hold the structure of every garment.’

Although Yim’s in-depth knowledge of knitwear sits at the heart of the label, Ply-Knits’ understated but detail-oriented aesthetic is just as alluring. With standout pieces including a herringbone-ribbed, mandarin scholar’s mock-neck top in techno cotton and a correspondent’s jacket in a merino wool and viscose mix that retains its polish despite long hours of travelling, Ply-Knits’ offerings easily fit into any well-appointed wardrobe.

Filled with invisible details, such as elastic thread or reinforced waistbands to support regular wear, along with unexpected knit patterns that bestow minimalist styles with a seductive impact, Ply-Knits redefines everyday luxury with its holistic design approach.

‘I think each garment should function as architecture and it should make the human body look good,’ Yim reflects. ‘I design intuitively, but am also influenced by industrial design principles. Dieter Rams’ “Ten Principles of Good Design” is something I always come back to.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Ply-Knits website

This month marks Wallpaper’s coming of age: our 21st anniversary. It’s also my tenth year as editor-in-chief, having switched from being creative director in April 2007. I must confess that my coming of age came a number of years earlier. Time flies.

One of the earliest projects I worked on in my new role was our inaugural October Guest Editors’ Issue. Now, many media outlets have given over their editorial reins to appropriate talents in order to bring a fresh perspective and generate some PR buzz. But because of Wallpaper’s multi-faceted editorial remit, we felt our spin on the concept should be equally all-encompassing – we would invite not just one, but up to three diverse creatives each year who would reflect our offering, but also push us to try new things.

So year one saw a purist industrial designer, Dieter Rams, an iconoclastic artist, Jeff Koons, and a much-more-than-a-fashion-designer fashion designer, Hedi Slimane. To rebalance the unintentional male bias for 2007, the next year saw Louise Bourgeois, Zaha Hadid and Rei Kawakubo bring art, architecture, and fashion girl power to our pages. Subsequent editions have seen Karl Lagerfeld, Philippe Starck, David Lynch, Robert Wilson, Kraftwerk, Christian Marclay, Lang Lang, Ole Scheeren, Taryn Simon, Laurie Simmons, Elmgreen & Dragset, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, William Wegman and Liz Diller have fun at our expense. That makes 21 in total, and therefore a convenient excuse to take a retrospective look, as well as request some updates for our latest issue. (Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm)

In addition to a 20-plus page section within the magazine, each of our Guest Editors was also invited to design a cover. Many called for unusual paper technologies – Hedi used specialist printing inks to simulate glitter, whereas Karl invited readers to strip the Dior Homme suit off his muse by means of a peelable layer. Starck constructed a transparent front cover using three layers of tracing paper. And Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter tacked on a pair of 3D specs, to go with his 3D cover portrait and portfolio of exclusive images tied to key Kraftwerk compositions.

If I had to pick one favourite project it would be Zaha’s. Her cover was a gatefold construction using multiple die-cuts, while inside she produced a 16-page die-cut sculpture, which was a take on her ‘Lotus’ room installation at that year’s Venice Biennale. ‘I want to put a big hole in the magazine’, she told us. We dutifully obliged.

Zaha was profiled by art critic Matthew Collings, who visited her at her London offices and provided a pleasant distraction from discussions about cement. Collings and ‘Big Z’, as he affectionately called her, hit it off immediately. ‘Her architecture is the greatest art of the moment,’ he said.

So it’s a huge pleasure for me and I think a fitting tribute to Zaha (who tragically passed away 18 months ago) that this anniversary issue’s cover was created by Zaha Hadid Architects and its principal and torchbearer, Patrik Schumacher.

Enjoy this special issue and raise a glass to Big Z.

Tony Chambers, Editor-in-Chief

As originally featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm, in keeping with our celebration of 21 years, and 21 guest editors

INFORMATION

The October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* is out now. Subscribe here

Connecticut-born graphic designer Tom Strong has been a lifelong fan of the work of Dieter Rams. Aged 77, Strong has spent over 50 years amassing a museum-worthy collection of the German designer’s work – specifically Rams’ utilitarian pieces for Braun, where he served as head of design from 1961 to 1995.

‘I began to collect these items because I enjoyed using them,’ says Strong, who was first seduced by the industrial design of Braun products in the 1960s while stationed with the US Army in Germany. ‘I was fascinated by the progression in design that I was seeing. The products were only evolved to improve their function, not just to change their style.’

Strong’s 250-piece collection includes everything from the familiar 1976 ‘KF21’ coffee maker to the rare 1962 ‘T1000’ radio – a piece that Strong tracked down in Frankfurt Germany. ‘I carried it on my lap all the way back to the USA on the flight,’ he remembers. ‘There was no way I would risk putting something so precious in my hold luggage!’

Now, for the first time, the products in Strong’s collection were the stars of their own show, with an exhibition at the New York store of British furniture brand Vitsœ. Arranged across Rams’ ‘606 Universal Shelving System’ for Vitsœ, around 85 pieces from Strong’s collection were on display.

Vitsœ has been making Rams’ furniture for more than 50 years, but this particular showcase was born out of a chance encounter. Having spent 30 years admiring Rams’ ‘620 Chair Programme’, Strong had finally decided to take the plunge and purchase one at the Vitsœ store.

It was here, during a conversation about the brand’s mission to educate the next generation of design students, that Strong decided to donate his entire collection to the manufacturer. ’You can’t take it with you,’ he says, reflecting on the collection’s legacy, ‘so you should at least put it into the safe hands of someone that will make good use of it.’

‘There’s this theory that if something is useful, it can’t be art, but that’s not true,’ he continues. ‘To me, the products designed by Rams were just as important as a Henry Moore sculpture – except people could afford them, touch them and use them.’

Coinciding with Rams’ 85th birthday on 20 May, the showcase marked the collection’s last days in the US before being shipped to its new permanent home in the UK, where it will be kept in the archive at Vitsœ’s new Leamington Spa HQ. ‘Donating the collection to Vitsœ was just a happy accident,’ says Strong, ‘but I couldn’t imagine a better home for it.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Vitsœ website

When the designer Dieter Rams was at the height of his creative output – heading a team designing ground-breaking electrical appliances for German manufacturer Braun in the late 1950s – he decided to take up furniture design with a new, little-known company called (at the time) Vitsoe + Zapf. Today, this would be like Apple’s Jony Ive going into partnership with a couple of businessmen in downtown Cupertino to design furniture while working on the iMac, MacBook, iPhone and iPad. You can't help but wonder how on earth he found the time – and why he felt the need to do so.

Rams’ motivation to design furniture wasn't all that surprising. He trained as an interior architect before joining Braun in 1955, initially to redesign some of the company workspaces. While at Braun he soon met and began to work with Bauhaus-trained Hans Hirche, Fritz Eichler and a number of designers from Ulm on the development of a new kind of product language – notably Hans Gugelot, with whom Rams co-designed the legendary 'SK 4' phonograph, nicknamed 'Snow White’s Coffin', from 1956.

Gugelot also designed functional, modular furniture systems, notably the 'M 125' from 1950, one of the early systems of components that could be mixed and matched according to the user’s needs. In the mid-1950s, Braun created its own modular trade fair stand designs, and also showed their appliances together with Knoll International, which produced Mies van der Rohe’s furniture designs, highly popular at the time. Rams, too, was deeply interested in the idea of utilitarian furniture systems, which he saw as a liberation from the straitjacket of tradition.

So, with the blessing of his bosses at Braun, Rams began a collaboration with the company (now simply named Vitsoe), that has continued to this day. He began with a highly utilitarian wall-mounted assembly system called 'RZ 57', the launch of which was quickly followed by the 'RZ 60' (now the '606' universal shelving system) which is still in production today and can, without hesitation, be ranked as one of the most iconic furniture designs of the 20th century. Every single one of Rams’ furniture designs for Vitsoe was conceived as a modular system of one form or another – be it lounge chairs that could be adapted into sofas (the '620' system) or a set of stackable plastic outdoor furniture ('740').

Rams’ designs for his furniture – as well as his appliances for Braun – adhered almost without exception to the maxim of 'good design is as little design as possible'. They are functional in form and 'quietly neutral' in appearance. He rejects 'loudness' in all it’s manifestations. Our furniture, he believes, is there to fit to our needs, not the other way around.

This exhibition, curated by Heng Zhi at the Vitra Design Museum’s gorgeous new Schaudepot building – designed by Herzog & de Meuron – is a fine opportunity to view Rams’ design world in the interior context that he always intended: furniture and appliances as one in a home setting that leaves 'room for the user’s self-expression'.

INFORMATION

’Dieter Rams: Modular World’ is on view until 12 March 2017. For more information, visit the Vitra Design Museum website

ADDRESS

Vitra Design Museum
Charles-Eames-Strasse 2
D-79576 Weil am Rhein

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'Good design,' said Dieter Rams, 'is as little design as possible.' A good point well made, but one that perhaps belies the current state of affairs. Successful design is not simply about form and function; there are patents and trademarks, copyrights and rights proceedings to take into account.

In an unprecedented move, over 100 design luminaries – including Rams himself, Louis Vuitton artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière, Sir Terence Conran, Lord Norman Foster, Jasper Morrison and Sir Paul Smith – have come together to pledge their support to design and its protection.

Catalysed by the long-fought patent battle between Apple and Samsung, the document – or amici curiae, to be technical – was compiled by Charles Mauro, president and founder of MauroNewMedia and presented by legal firm Orrick. Those who have signed the 62-page document are in no way party to the litigations at hand, wherein the US Supreme Court has been asked to reject Samsung’s appeal in the Apple v. Samsung case. This document is only meant to advise proceedings. 

The crux of the argument is that, as industrial design has segued from a purely utilitarian to an aesthetic industry, form has become as important as function. And this, in the eyes of design's game changers, is what needs protecting.

To that end, the document includes a brief history of the ethics and aesthetics of industrial design, including a look back at Raymond Loewy, who would become the father of American industrial design. Loewy's lasting legacy was his ability to take existing products and redesign them with a fresh, appealing aesthetic. Sigmund Gestetner's 'duplicating machine' was the first to receive the Loewy treatment, a slick redesign which resulted in soaring sales. The Roebuck & Co 'Coldspot' refrigerator followed suit, as did many other appliances and objects not mentioned in the amicus.

The now iconic Coca-Cola bottle comes into consideration as an example of how a product's visual design becomes the product itself in the minds of consumers. So too do American automobiles, including Henry Ford's Model T and General Motors' bold and bright Chevrolet. 'History,' summarises Mauro, 'teaches that visual design is the way to package, market and sell technological innovation, manufacturing knowhow, product reliability and performance expectations. Appearance becomes identified with the underlying functional features and with a particular level of product quality and safety.'
 
Intellectual property and protecting design patent rights against infringement are increasingly important subjects. It is not without reason that 111 renown and respected names in the design world – including Konstantin Grcic, Calvin Klein and Alber Elbaz, as well as Sir John Sorrell, Microsoft's executive creative director Raymond Riley and Bentley's director of design Stefan Sielaff – have given their support to this cause.
 
Form might not always follow function, but it will always be the gateway to user experience. It's all very well shrugging our collective shoulders and hoping that the dark arts of branding and marketing will ultimately prevail. But for the legions of skilled designers – whatever their field – the need for greater protection against shameless aping, lazy copying and outright theft has never been more apparent.

High excitement at the consumer electronics manufacturer Braun this week, as the finalists of BraunPrize 2015 were paraded in front of an audience at their HQ in the small German town of Kronberg. The prize started in 1968 under the stewardship of Braun’s then design director Dieter Rams. Since the departure of that influential visionary in 1995, and Braun’s purchase by US brand P&G a decade later, Braun seems to have lost its aesthetic way. But this year’s BraunPrize injected some thought-provoking conceptual ideas into the building.

The competition brief called for product concepts that put 'the extra in the ordinary,' because 'we surround ourselves with things we don’t really value, instead of focusing on fewer but better solutions that contribute to our lives,' says Braun design director Oliver Grabes.

The jury had whittled down more than 2,500 entries to just three finalists in two categories - students, professionals and enthusiasts – who would share the $75,000 prize money. After each presented their concept, the outright winner was chosen through an audience ballot – an unusual twist for such a competition. Roel Deden of Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands came out on top of the students for Printhesis, an ingenious cheap, lightweight, 3D-printed prosthetics concept.

In the second category, Helsinki-based designer Mats Lönngren won with Ahti X 1, a life jacket with built-in mobile technology to locate a man overboard and speed up rescue. For its Rams-like minimalism, perhaps, a smart fuse box for homes called Fuse by DCA Design International in Warwick, UK, was awarded silver.

If votes had been cast for presentation style alone, the three-strong industrial design team from China’s Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts would have won hands down. Looking unfeasibly young and dapper in dark suits, Dong Ding, JinCai Ma and JunXi Huang (one of them sporting a chic bowtie) gravely stood to attention while an English-speaking companion delivered their entry. Wiper Barricade Lights, an LED warning concept for car rear windows was rewarded with bronze.

The super-slim hands and clean dials that define utilitarian post-war kitchen and factory clocks are natural inspiration for classic watch design. Legibility is key when quickly glancing at your wrist, and the graphic characteristics of Max Bill's 1956 wall clock for German brand Junghans, Dieter Rams' clocks for Braun, and Henning Koppel's 1978 wall clock for Georg Jensen are a pretty perfect starting point for any modern watch designer.

London-based Uniform Wares cite original Smiths Sectric kitchen clocks as a primary inspiration when they started designing watches, and now the Nomos Glashütte brand has followed suit with its homage to 1960s domestic design.

It has recently launched the Lux collection that's crafted in gold, and has both the tech and aesthetic credentials of Bill's early design. In fact, Junghans' clock was originally so successful that it was quickly followed by a line of wristwatches. During the mid-century consumer boom, German watch design tended towards a scientific aesthetic - a necessary marketing tactic in a packed arena.

Bill, during his directorship of the Ulm School of Design, designed the clock in conjunction with his students, following the rationale that form must follow function. The dial design of the hand-winding model, with an interior ring of hours surrounded by an outer ring of minute markers, was taken from the school's original drawings.

Last year Junghans integrated it into a sizeable 38mm automatic wristwatch to allow for more clean space on the dial, whether in graphite or black. Georg Jensen is also rumoured to be launching a new line of Koppel watch designs at Baselworld watch fair this Spring.

The Nomos Lux gently mirrors Bill's 1960s wall clock-with-timer. Sword hands sweep around a white dial surrounded by a choice of 1960s Formica colours - pale blue, canary yellow, claret or lilac-grey. The tonneau-shaped case meanwhile is reminiscent of Bill's organic, inverted-teardrop timer design.

Cult minimalists Uniform Wares reworked the simplicity and functionality of British factory wall clocks from the same era for their M-line range. 'As a progressive British brand, a lineage of great British design and style influences our thinking,' says co-founder Patrick Bek. 'We use subtle identifiers throughout the collections to highlight the quirks.' English manufacturers Smiths Sectric and Gents' of Leicester are two such inspirations - an ultra-clean dial bears nothing but hour and minute hands and slightly chunky indices. And, following Rams into permanent-collection territory, Uniform Wares M37, the line's cornerstone piece, is a steady fixture in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Architecture and Design collection. 

Furniture store Vitsoe opens an outpost in Munich's Kunstareal district today, opposite Sauerbruch and Hutton's Brandhorst Museum. The new space is an aptly handsome showcase for the brand's flagship product - Dieter Rams' iconic '606 Universal Shelving System' - and follows hot on the heels of Vitsoe's announcement that it has acquired the exclusive worldwide licence for Rams' designs.

This licence is a boon for the brand, with the name Dieter Rams being pretty much legend in design circles - standing for a disciplined, reduced, yet democratic design approach that now extends (as legends tend to do) way beyond the designer's own oeuvre. While he is mainly know for his stint as chief designer at Braun for most of the second half of the 20th century, Rams also found time to design a whole furniture range produced first with Otto Zapf and later Niels Vitsoe from the early 1960s until the 1980s.

Times and tastes changed, and Vitsoe (pronounced 'Vitsoo') was sold to Mark Adams, an enterprising and devoted design admirer based in London. A company called sdr+ also retained production and sales licences for Dieter Rams designs in Germany and mainland Europe. Whereas Vitsoe in London stripped everything back to the essentials and spent the next 20 odd years perfecting just one product, the 606 Shelving System, sdr+ went on producing the shelves in different colour variations and a number of other products that they added to those designed by Dieter Rams (the name stands for 'System Dieter Rams plus others'). However, as of 1 January 2013 Rams handed over the full and exclusive rights for the production of his furniture worldwide to Vitsoe to 'ensure that my furniture is in the best hands for the years ahead'. A tough blow for sdr+, but a coup for Vitsoe, which is now able to open a shop bearing its name in Germany for the first time in almost two decades.

At the Munich store, would-be customers can browse the 606 Universal Shelving System's modular variations and consider whether to embark on the lifetime relationship that this piece of furniture appears to demand of its owners who, once committed, tend to use words like 'heirloom' and 'investment' when they talk about it. This is appropriate, because it certainly doesn't come cheap, but what it does come with is an informed, patient and courteous sales and instalment support package that extends the feeling of having a personal, bespoke relationship with both company and product that is built to last, just as Dieter Rams always intended.

Until now, Vitsoe has sold only one product, the 606 Shelving System, but after several years of cautious and painstaking redesign work under Rams' watchful eye, it is now re-issuing the designer's 620 armchair programme from 1962, so fans of the flexible, minimal shelving design can now look forward to an appropriate lounge option from which to admire their timeless powder-coated design masterpieces in all their long-lived glory.

We caught up with Mark Adams, Managing Director of Vitsoe ahead of the Munich opening...

The manufacture and retail industries are in the throes of massive change. Is opening a high street shop not a retrograde step in times like these?
The web is bringing that change; for 15 years we have been using this medium as a means to allow closer contact with our customers. The combination of our own shops and the web enhances that closeness. In our opinion - and according to our customers - this is the future, not the past.
 
Why did you choose Munich for your first store in Germany?
The cultured city of Munich has always been a good market for Vitsoe.

Are you planning more stores? In which countries?
We are already in London, New York and Los Angeles, and we opened in Tokyo in December 2012. Now we are opening in Munich. In this 100th year since our founder Niels Vitsoe's birth, we will soon be announcing an arrival in his home country of Denmark. Then we will pause for a short while.

What can we expect from the 620 chair redesign that is now available once again from Vitsoe?
Higher quality, a lower price and quicker delivery. The chair programme has been entirely re-engineered; not a single screw has been left untouched. The result is a chair that, on first glance, looks the same but on closer inspection is almost entirely changed. We strive at Vitsoe - every day - to be better rather than newer.

ADDRESS

Vitsoe München
Türkenstrasse 36
80799 München

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Not many (if any) designers can lay claim to a body of work so far reaching that it has touched the lives of even those who have absolutely no idea who they are, let alone influenced virtually every contemporary designer in practice today. Yet, Dieter Rams is such. A must for followers of the designer, Sophie Lovell's new tome not only covers Rams' entire career and philosophy, it dives into the context with which his work has come to be a blueprint for sustainability and longevity in design.

While many of the books about Dieter Rams are predominantly dry catalogues, Lovell's book examines the relevance of his work from a contemporary design standpoint by featuring interviews with some of today's top industrial designers, such as Naoto Fukasawa, Sam Hecht and Jasper Morrison, reflecting on his influence. 'A lot of people are re-examining (and redefining) the role and responsibilities of design and designers today,' says Lovell. 'I hope that by providing an in depth picture of Rams, his work and its context, this book may prove helpful towards the debate.'

Keen that the book dispels some long-running myths, Lovell reinforces Rams' reluctance to be seen as a superstar design god. 'He would be the first to say that his initial path had a lot to do with lucky coincidence,' she says. Touching on Rams' collaboration with his team at Braun as essential for the sheer volume of the company's output, Lovell cites other rarely mentioned design greats involved with the Braun phenomenon, including 'Gerd A. Mueller, Reinhold Weiss and Dietrich Lubs for example, or the brilliant Hans Gugelot from Ulm. Not to mention the brave vision of the Braun brothers'.

The most important consideration for Lovell was, quite understandably, trying not to lose track of the hundreds of products Rams designed and co-designed - a daunting task made pleasurable and 'enriching' by time spent with both Rams and his organiser and advisor Britte Siepenkothen.

A foreword by Jonathan Ive hones in on just how far the Rams effect is felt. Ive's account of his childhood encounter with a Braun MPZ 2 Citromatic and its 'bold, pure, perfectly-proportioned, coherent and effortless' surface goes a long way to illustrate the influence Rams has had on some of the most successful products of the last 20 years. Lovell draws a parallel between the designers: 'They do both have a very similar attitude and drive towards the simplicity of perfection in their work.'

It’s not an overstatement to say Dieter Rams is perhaps the most influential living industrial designer of modern times. His 500-strong output of electronic designs for Braun, between 1955 and 1995 changed the language of appliance design as we know it today and his ‘Ten Principles’ of good design have become a mantra – a checklist and a rule book – for industrial designers the world over. With the same reductive efficiency he applied to his own designs, in ten simple commandments, Rams succinctly defined what design for a post-war modern world should be.

Simplifying and humanising Bauhaus principles, marrying them with the electronic and engineering advances born from the Second World War, Rams’ appliances are lean and clean. Switches are small and ordered, different components are arranged geometrically, colour-coded in a muted palette and finished with a combination of wood veneer and the pioneering plastics he developed. You didn’t have to be part of a financial or cultural elite to own or appreciate a Rams-designed appliance.

His design legacy continues today apace, most stringently in the work of the super-normalists Naoto Fukasawa, Jasper Morrison and Industrial Facility and most widespread in the work of Jonathan Ive whose i-products are arguably the closest anyone has come to achieving ten ticks against Rams’ ten principles.

Read our Q&A with the Bibliothèque who did the graphic identity for the exhibition

A retrospective of Rams’ seminal designs are on show at the Design Museum together with archive footage, models, sketches and film interviews with Ive, Morrison, Hecht and Fukasawa. The exhibition isn't just a chronological survey of his work for Braun and furniture for Vitsoe, it provides comprehensive insight into the man behind the designs, how his work evolved and how widespread his influence, both details and overall, has been.

Given his status is the design world it was only fitting that Rams was one of our inaugural guest editors of issue W*103 – for which Matthew Donaldson, as the centrepiece of Rams’ edited section, brought to life the ‘Ten Principles’ in a photographic essay. In addition to Rams’ retrospective we've resurrected Donaldson’s shoot here, which captures perfectly the quiet magnanimity of Rams’ designs, from principle to product in ten photographs.

These days, it’s almost a reflex action to pronounce 'Less but better' every time the subject turns to product design. Quite exactly what the phrase means, however, is considerably less easy to explain. For that, it’s been, equally, a reflex action to turn to Dieter Rams for guidance.

For over half a century, the German designer has almost single-handedly directed the evolution of objective functionalism – the idea that good design should be innovative, functional and durable all while looking very good.

See more images from the Dieter Rams exhibition

The bulk of Rams’ work – well, the work for which his name will forever be linked – was done with Braun, Vitsoe, sdr+ and FSB International. With the designer turning 76 this year, the Japanese – no slouches themselves when it comes to clean, pure lined design – have taken it upon themselves to mount an exhibition of product design with Rams holding the place of honour.

Certainly, the challenge of editing Rams is daunting. The catalogue is extensive and in his lifetime, Rams has designed or supervised the design of over 500 products – a prodigious output that not even Jonathan Ive’s Apple team can compete with.

As it is, the exhibition – a mix of sketches, models, photographs and films – covers the usual suspects such as the multi-press citrus juicer, the T1000 world receiver radio and the ET88 calculator. But to hold any possible ennui at bay, there are pleasant discoveries in store including the LE1 loudspeaker and the rarely seen TPI radio, a portable record player and radio combination that Rams has described as the first Walkman.

The exhibition is due to finish its run at Osaka’s Suntory Museum on 25 January 2008 before moving onto Tokyo’s Fuchu Art Museum in May. And if an added reason is required to swing by, the catalogue by Keiko Ueki and Klaus Kemp is a wonderfully comprehensive look at the great man's work - with an essay by our very own Wallpaper* Editor-at-Large Sophie Lovell.

ADDRESS

Suntory Museum 1-5-10 Kaigandori Minato-ku Osaka 552-0022

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