Quotes from Dieter Rams

I am not an early bird. I go to bed normally between midnight and 1 o'clock, so it is understandable that I cannot be an early bird. I wake up around 9 o'clock.

You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.

Good design is long-lasting! It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated.

Good design means as little design as possible.

Good design is thorough, down to the last detail.

Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is honest.

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

As designers we have a great responsibility. I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.

Design should not dominate things, should not dominate people. It should help people. That's its role.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

Products have to be designed in a way that they are comprehensible.

Quiet is better than loud.

As designers, we have a great responsibility.

I don't like computers. I still like to do my drawings by hand.

I sit, I think, I make some drawings. As a designer, you cannot retire totally.

I like to be in New York. Le Corbusier described it in the 1930s as a 'wonderful catastrophe.' It is still a wonderful catastrophe, but inspiring.

Not the spectacular things are the important things - the unspectacular things are the important things, especially in the future.

All too much of the man-made is ugly, inefficient, depressing chaos.

There is a lot of bad architecture. What we need more is to look at how our landscape should look in the next decades.

I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.

We designers, we don't work in a vacuum. We need business people. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with.

Having small touches of colour makes it more colourful than having the whole thing in colour