My Eleven Principles of Good Design

There are ten principles that defined Dieter Rams’ approach to “good design”.

• Good design is innovative.


• Good design makes a product useful.


• Good design is aesthetic.


• Good design helps us to understand a product.


• Good design is unobtrusive.


• Good design is honest.


• Good design is durable.


• Good design is consequent to the last detail.


• Good design is concerned with the environment.


• Good design is as little design as possible.


• Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Rams influenced such great industrial designers like Jonathan Ive, whom is behind the great design success of Apple Computer—with his designs of the iPod, iMac, and so forth. However, Rams philosophy of design transcends industrial design into other design disciplines such as print and web design. The idea that the message should never be sacrificed by the design is universal to print and web designers. This is my philosophy:

• Good design is universal (i.e. nature, man-made objects, spacial arrangements.)


• Good design is innovative.


• Good design is beautiful.


• Good design helps the intended audience understand the message.


• Good design does not get in the way of the message.


• Good design is honest.


• Good design is built to last the life of the message.


• Good design is logically consistent.


• Good design influences the intended audience.


• Good design is simple.


• Good design is appropriate.