Design – Ritual of a Hopeful Society?
If an environment can shape a personality, then personality can shape a design. What is needed most in a world where personality is shaped by a sometimes too chaotic or stressed environment? Ease. Simplicity. Hope. Is that not what good design should also incorporate? In Japanese, there is a word for all objects made, designed and improved by people: dogu. The dogu, the object or objects that people live with, represent the owner’s personality. Dieter Rams took the confusing time of design he found himself and projected his personality through his designs to provide simplicity as a way to help people live with useable and free-of-fuss designs. His dogu has simplified the world over and has since become an inspiration to designers in all fields of design.
An individual or company that looks to convey ease of use should utilise what Dieter Rams philosophised. Immersing themselves in no nonsense website design, clean line layout and the company’s ethos in every design decision, can create a personality that shows people that they are simple to work with, they work well and what they do is long lasting. If design aspires to lend hope through the designer’s personality in a human way, then everything in a product should be useful, serve a purpose more than providing something to look at and create something that fulfils not only its own purpose, but also the users. With a useful and well thought through idea, the personality of the designer can allow the user to enact their life through the product they have given them. A simple idea that can give another meaning and use to design.
It may be sometimes easy to miss, but it is likely you will find something in most homes designed or inspired by Dieter Rams from a period in his long and unshakeable career as helmsman of simple and crisp design. Juicers, TVs, radios, stereos, furniture and likely the device you’re reading this on.
Living in the changing world of rebuilding of Germany in the 1950s, Dieter Rams was inspired by his grandfather’s carpentry work and set on a course to changing people’s lives by being part of rebuilding the country he lived in. Providing hope for so many through the work he was doing before even designing his first commercial product with Braun. Questioning the confusing design scene of the 1970s, Mr Rams asked himself a question; is my design a good design? He asks; is it useable? Is it beneficial to humanity? Inspiration from the environment around him, which he calls an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises, has given us a world of simple, functional and non-obtrusive designs that stay timeless with their weniger, aber besser (less, but better) philosophy.