Sophie Lovell
Phaidon Press, New York, 2011, English
Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design
10.9 x 8.4 x 1.8 inches, hardcover, 400 pages, 300 color illustrations
ISBN: 9780714849188
Suggested Retail Price: $95.00

From the Publisher. A comprehensive monograph on highly influential product designer Dieter Rams (b.1932). As head of design at Braun from 1961 to 1995, Rams created some of the most iconic objects of the twentieth century. A detailed text covering Rams’s life, the intellectual context in which he worked, his designs for Braun and Vitsoe, and the ideas and lectures he developed as an advocate for good design. Includes a foreword by Jonathan Ive, head of design at Apple Inc.. Sketches and photographs of finished products and prototypes provide insight into Rams’s design process; diverse archival material and photographs give a complete picture of his life and work.

On 2 book lists
Paul Makovsky

Only Dieter Rams can claim to have inspired so many of today’s star designers, including Naoto Fukasawa, Jasper Morrison, Sam Hecht, and Jonathan Ive. This excellent book covers the designer’s entire career and philosophy and explains why his work has come to influence anyone whose design embodies a functional simplicity. You’ll find a great visual essay that documents the designer’s house in Stuttgart, and another one on the Braun archive that verges on design porn. Apple’s own Jonathan Ive even weighs in, and describes how he came to be a fan of the designer’s work—it all started with a Braun MPZ 2 Citromatic.

Tiana Vasiljev

I fell in love with the work of Dieter Rams when I first visited his exhibition at the Design Museum in London. There is nothing as exciting as seeing such a large collection of his products on display in one place. However, I must say that this book comes extremely close. As Little Design as Possible is by far the most elegant and well-documented book written about Dieter Rams. The range of selected paper stock, minimalist design, and wide variety of visual matter displayed throughout the publication makes this book an essential for every designer. It is a very clear, comprehensive, and beautiful presentation of the designer's work and philosophy. It is a crucial piece for anyone interested in Rams’s products, legacy, and ideas.

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