"Good design is as little design as possible."
--from the 10 design commandments of Dieter Rams (famous German industrial designer, born 1932, links to Design Museum site)
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Star Trek computer, far left, in the episode "Court Martial" (1967).
Dieter Rams designed this classic T1000 radio, near left, in 1962.
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I will spare you the entire history of stereo components (I had no idea this religion existed!); but this is so cool: Dieter Rams--the head of design for Braun--started using a black base (below, left) for hi-fi components in 1965, like the black base of the Star Trek bridge consoles.
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(Note also, there've been a lot of comparisons drawn in the last year or two between Rams's designs and those of Apple designer Jonathan Ive.)
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As always, Star Trek screencaps from TrekCore.com.
This reminds me of Beatrice Ward's comment on typography - made in the 1920s -- "good typography is invisible."
ReplyDeleteThat's good--thanks!
ReplyDeleteI might even say the same thing about writing:
good writing is invisible.
Of course, sometimes GREAT writing/design etc. shows itself in big blaring curlicues in the sky too! But mostly not.