Dieter Rams

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

Good design is thorough down to the last detail.

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

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

Quiet is better than loud.

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

One of the most significant design principles is to omit the unimportant in order to emphasize the important.

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

The design should make the product speak to you.

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

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

As designers, we have a great responsibility.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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