Customer Reviews

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought this was fascinating and comprehensive overview of Braun and Dieter Rams contribution to the success of the company though I think it has a quite a serious editorial flaw.

The publishers have been quite clever in accommodating the huge amount of text and graphic material in a book of just over eight hundred pages. The text, German on left-hand pages and English on the right, has been printed on very thin paper (known as bible stock in the trade) which has a certain amount of show-through. The excellent product shots (314 pages) have been printed on a good matt art with another paper used for the remaining photo essays. Incidentally the color work in the book is printed with an impressive 300 screen, most art books run to 175 to 250.

Eleven of the nineteen chapters are text (on the thin paper) and explore in as much detail as you could want about German and middle European design in the first decades of the last century and how it influenced Rams, particularly the Bauhaus and Ulm design laboratories. A fascinating sixty-five page chapter: 'Dieter Rams, Braun, Vitsoe and the shrinking world' explores the reasons for the companies success and Rams contribution with brilliant product design. Another chapter: 'Graphic design: Braun and Vitsoe' delves, in part, into the typeface used on the products, always in lower-case and originally Akzidenz-Grotesk but after the sixties switching to Helvetica.

Between the essays and possibly the main strength of the book are the photo product pages, basically electrical products for the home. Each item gets a spread of lovely close-up photos butted together and then a spread with a head on shot on the left and each right-hand page having relevant profile photos. Here, unfortunately, I think the book falls down (and why I've given it four stars) because these photos are just too small and made more noticeable because the rest of each page is blank. Matt black was a design element for many of the audio products and to see them basically as small silhouettes with the detail of the fascia, side and backs near invisible seems a nonsense. To have all these product shots this small is just a book designer's whimsy and doesn't do the reader any favors. There are other photos essays of Braun products (including fourteen pages of ones that didn't make it) brochures, packaging, Dieter Rams home.

'Less and more' is an impressive book (apart from the small product photos) and could well become the standard work on the company for design students and those who appreciate good product design and want to know about a man and company that created such high standards. There is another book about the company that might interest you: BRAUN--Fifty Years of Design and Innovation basically product shots with a very comprehensive listing of these in the back pages.

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Beautifully printed soft-cover book with thin board slip case. I have several books on Rams and Braun, but this one is almost certainly the best. The main focus here is on Rams with examples of his work for Braun and other companies. Beyond beautifully photographed examples of Braun classics, the book also looks at sketches, prototypes of unrealized products, and even engineering models for some items. Highly interesting with well-written text in English and German.

I own many books on Rams and his work but this book is by far the best. Not only is the content of this book excellent, but the quality of materials and the craft of the product is stunning. It was without a doubt worth the $50 I paid.

This book is beautifully crafted, following the design principles of Dieter Rams in it's construction as well. It is a soft cover, and the text pages are bible thin, yet have a great resolution. The color photography is in a different, extremely high quality gloss paper. The book is based on an expo by Dieter Rams and Braun on 40 years of design. Great lessons to be learned from one of the greatest minds of the 20/21st century.

I really like this book. It's very unique and very well made. Beautiful pictures, quality paper, and i really like the cover (Its like a matte finish vinyl) and the sleeve that protects the book is awesome.

Its the kind of book you want out where you and others can see it.

A superbly produced publication, a pleasure to read and a pleasure to enjoy just looking!