You can tell this was written when design-thinking jargon was at its peak. The retelling of Rams' "10 principles" is always funny to me because he never "set ou

You can tell this was written when design-thinking jargon was at its peak. The retelling of Rams' "10 principles" is always funny to me because he never "set out" to write those rules. For the uninitiated, here's a summary: Starting in the late 70s Rams talked about the design ideas that led to the success of Braun, specifically three rules: a rule of order, a rule of harmony and a rule of economy. Later he would be describe these further as "function and performance, feasibility and aesthetic quality". Years later, his reflections on his contributions to Braun became six principles: "1. Good Design is innovative, 2. Good design renders utility to a product, 3. Good design is aesthetic design, 4. Good design makes a product easy to understand, 5. Good design is unobtrusive, 6. Good design is honest". It's not until one of his lectures in 1985 where he added the last four: "Good design means durability, Good design means consistency down to the last detail, Good design means respect for the environment and Good design means as little design as possible." By the time these principles where published in the late 80s they were referred to as "Braun design department’s Design Philosophy" and were mostly a reflection of Braun's practice than Rams'. Nevertheless it seems Rams outlived the Braun brand and became a bigger brand himself. In his retrospective exhibition at the Design Museum in 2009, many drawings and photos of braun products where printed on posters which arguably started the Rams merchandise trend. The poster that had the ten principles also contained a paragraph by Rams didn't get as much attention. He wrote: "I have distilled the essentials of my design philosophy into ten principles. But these principles cannot be set in stone because, just as technology and culture are constantly developing, so are ideas about good design".