I like the principles but the examples are not that** excellent. With the same principles you can end up doing stuff very differently: Marttiini vs. Tommi Porche vs. Mini Walther vs. Detective special Many times good design goes very closely with good engineering. Porsche for example features a six cylinder boxer engines. They are a wet dream to anyone who likes theoretically cool engines as well as to anyone who just likes practically good engines. (self balancing and theoretically no need for flywheel, very low center of mass, and smallest engine capable of all this) That Walther pistol is theoretically even more beautiful than aesthetically. It features recoil operation, which is potentially lightest self loading operation and it has unique feature of damping out recoil. Yet the barrel travel in this recoiling motion is completely aligned with sights in contrast to 1911 style pistols. This feature gives this little beast as good accuracy as the bullet is capable of delivering.
...the examples are all Dieter Rams products. I would personally argue, as a mechanical engineer, that the Porsche flat six delivers a whole bunch of maladies to go with its advantages - it takes up a crapton of space, it's fussy to cool and it requires an extremely wide wheelbase.
I know they are all Dieter Rams. And I tried to say that he's personal style, while cool, is not some kind of standard of good design. Because even if you would follow those principles, you could end up in very different outcome. I'm just mechanical engineering student, so please forgive me little fanaticism about that Porsche engine?
Oh and to my experience, best design is often fun and cute.
You make Johnny Ive cry. Herman Miller's entire ouvre flies in the face of Dieter Rams.
Sorry 'Jony'. I just don't always find clean lines and simplicity universally appealing. Personally, I'd much rather live in a Star Wars-looking world than a Star Trek-looking one. Sometimes texture and complexity is wonderful. We are made to recognize patterns. IMO a completely Dieter Ramified world would feel pre-chewed.
Amen. I think I'm more of a minimalist when it comes to "tools" and more into flamboyance when there's a social aspect to it (cars, computers, etc). What I think is most interesting about this is that the Soviet Union is most assuredly "form follows function" but there's something deeply appealing about it. And Dieter Rams would never design this:
It's a Philippe Starck, designed for Steve Jobs. And yes. It's fucking hideous. there are uglier, however.