And here's Apple Senior VP Jonathan Ive on how he was 'enchanted' by Dieter Rams as a boy
Dieter Rams's Braun product range, circa（approximately） 1970, every design a stroke of genius - from the iPad version of As Little Design as Possible
We've spent too much of today swiping through the beautiful new iPad version of our Dieter Rams book, As Little Design as Possible Two things have really caught our eye. The visuals: The way the pictures absolutely ping from the page - all of them beautifully shot and fantastically rendered in this new iBooks edition for iPad. And, the words - specifically Jonathan Ive's wonderfully judged foreword and appreciation of the work of Rams, a designer he has often paid homage to when describing his own superlative work.
我们今天用了大部分的时间来浏览 iPad 版本的 Dieter Rams 的作品「微设计，尽您所能」。 画册中精美拍摄或者渲染的图片，以及所搭配的文字，都让我们恋恋不舍。尤其是 ive 为此书作的序言，其中 ive 提到，当展示他自己的作品时，他称之为在向 Rams 的作品致敬。
There's a great bit in Ive's intro where he describes the concave button on one particular Rams music player, "necessary to stop your finger from slipping," he says, "as it made the long travel necessary for earlier mechanical switches." It couldn't help but remind us of Ive's own, perfectly proportioned, concave button on the iPad on which we were reading Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible.
Ive 在序言中花了大量的篇幅描述了 Rams 的一个特别的音乐播放器的内凹形状的旋钮。 他说道：该旋钮让你的手指及时停止滑动，有点像早期的机械开关。 这个让我们不禁联想到我们正在使用的 iPad 上的那个 home 按键，而这个正是 Ive’s 的杰作。
A screen shot from As Little Design as Possible
Of course we would say this but we really can't recommend this new version strongly enough - it really does seem like Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible was made to be enjoyed this way. So to celebrate its publication we thought it was approriate to bring you Jonathan Ive's intro. Here it is in its entirety.
我们很想说，非常推荐 iPad 版本的 as little design as possible ，但是实际上看起来就应该这样被阅读。因此，为了庆祝此书的出版，我们认为分享 Ive’s 的序言是合适的，以下是全文。
"When I was a young boy growing up in London, my parents bought a wonderful juicer. It was a Braun MPZ 2 Citromatic. I knew nothing about Dieter Rams or his ten principles of good design. But to a little boy uninterested in juicing, I remember the Citromatic he and his team designed for Braun with shocking clarity. It was white. It felt cold and heavy. The surfaces were without apology, bold, pure, perfectly-proportioned, coherent and effortless. There was an honest connection between its blemish-free surfaces and the materials from which they were made. It was clearly made from the best materials, not the cheapest. No part appeared to be either hidden or celebrated, just perfectly considered and completely appropriate in the hierarchy of the product’s details and features.
当我是一个在伦敦长大的小孩时，我的父母购买了一台榨汁机，型号是 Braun 的 MPE 2 Citromatic. 我当时对 Rams 和关于好设计的10 条准则一无所知，但是对于一个对榨汁机没有什么兴趣的小孩来说，我记住了这台榨汁机。它是白色的，看起来有点冰冷，有一点重，表面优雅，纯净，比例完美，连续且毫不费力，完全无瑕疵的表面和材料之间存在着某种联系。 一眼望去就可以知道使用的是最好的材料，不是最便宜的，没有一处是需要被隐藏或者需要被强调。在产品的细节和特征树中，一切都是深思熟虑，且合适的。
A screen shot from As Little Design as Possible
At a glance, you knew exactly what it was and exactly how to use it. It was the essence of juicing made material: a static object that perfectly described the process by which it worked. It felt complete and it felt right. While my memories are, of course, in the past tense, the product remains all these things. I was completely enchanted with it then, and I now find, with surprise, that this object resonated so deeply with me that nearly forty years on I remember my sense of it with startling clarity.
只需要看一眼，就可以准确的知道这是什么，如何使用。一个静态的物体完美的展现了工作时的状态，完成了，可以了，这就是榨汁机的本质。 在我的记忆中，在过去的时间里，这个代表了很多。 当时我是完全为之着迷，现在我惊奇的发现，在过去的 40 年内，一旦提到该物品，我就会想起初次见面的场景。
While studying design in the 1980s I read about Dieter Rams and his work with his team at Braun. But the reading was never as powerful as seeing and using his products. Prolific and consistent, Rams is defined by what he does rather than what he says. And what Dieter Rams and his team at Braun did was to produce hundreds of wonderfully conceived and designed objects: products that were beautifully made in high volumes and that were broadly accessible. He defined how it was supposed to be: how industry could responsibly bring useful, well-considered products to many.
当我 80 年代学习设计的时候，我阅读了大量关于 Rams 以及他和他的团队作品的文章。 但是文章永远没有欣赏或者使用他的作品带给用户的震撼多。高产和统一，是 Rams 在人们心目中的印象，这个印象来源于他的作品而不是他所说的。 他和他在博朗的团队生产了数百款精心构思和设计的物品，这些作品制作精良，并且被广泛接受。 他定义了事物是什么就应该需要呈现是什么的状态：工业有责任将有用的，考虑周全的产品带给用户。
Fritz Eichler and Dieter Rams, circa 1968
In so many ways Dieter Rams’s work is beyond improvement. Although new technologies have since offered new opportunities, his designs are not undermined by the limits of the technologies of their time. The concave button top, necessary to stop your finger from slipping as it made the long travel necessary for earlier mechanical switches, does not point to obsolete mechanisms. Instead, it reminds us how immediately and intuitively form alone can describe what an object does and suggest how we should use it. So profoundly good is his design of music players, cameras and kitchen tools that it somehow transcends their technical capability. Some of these products are now over fifty years old.Rams’s ability to bring form to a product so that it clearly, concisely and immediately communicates its meaning is remarkable. The completeness of the relationship between shape and construction, material and process, defines his work and remains a conspicuously rare quality. And although there is no inherent virtue in consistency, Rams’s application and resolve to pursue his vision over time also led to a remarkable cohesiveness of design throughout his career.
Rams 的工作远超过改良，尽管新的科技提供了新的机遇，但是他的设计并没有被当时技术的限制而被左右。 当它旋转了一定的角度后，这个内凹面的旋钮及时的提醒你停止转动，有点类似早期的机械开关，但是并不是过时的机械操作。 相反，这个提醒了我们：独立的直觉的形式可以描述一个物体是什么，暗示这个物体如何工作。 因此 ，他的音乐播放器，照相机，厨房工具的设计超越了当时技术的限制，其中一些产品已经超过 50 年了。 Rams 将形式赋予给一个产品并且清楚，简洁的传达其内在意义的能力是卓越的。外形和功能，材料和工艺的完成度，定义了他的作品并且达到了一个罕见的高品质。 尽管在一致性方面没有一个明确的准则，在他的整个职业生涯，Rams 对于远见的不断追求也促成了一个显著的设计凝聚力。
A screen shot of the interactive timeline from As Little Design as Possible - click on a product and up comes its picture
His products seem inevitable, challenging you to question whether there could possibly be a rational alternative. It is this clarity and purity that leads to the sense of inevitability and effortlessness that characterizes his work. The CSV 12 amplifier rotary switch, for example, is perfect. It could not be better, simpler, clearer, or more beautiful. It brings order and explanation to what is a far more complex problem than the user could possibly conceive. Simplicity, of course, is not the absence of complexity. Just removing clutter would result in uncomplicated but meaningless products. Rams’s genius lies in understanding and giving form to the very essence of an object’s being - almost describing its reason for existence, as so perfectly illustrated by the Citromatic juicer of my childhood.
Ironically, while he relegated these products to the status of tools, he elevated them by imbuing them with clarity, simplicity and consequent beauty. In doing so he defined the new relationship between the object and the user. He and his team created objects that were neither vehicles of self-expression nor purely a means to make money. He addressed the issue of our relationship with our manu- factured environment, articulating important rules of engagement between user and product.
他的产品看起来都是必然的，促使你去思考是否还有没有改善的可能。 追求必然和无意识的结果带来的清晰和纯粹定义了他的工作。 例如， THE CSV12 放大器的旋转开关，就是完美的。 它不可能更好，更简洁，更清楚或者更美。 由此它带来的秩序和解释也是一个非常复杂的问题，远超用户的想象。 简洁并不是复杂的缺席，仅仅去除繁复将会产生不复杂但是无意义的产品。 Rams 的伟大在于理解并赋予一定的形式以便呈现物体的本质，类似于描述存在的原因，就像那台童年时代的榨汁机。
另一方面，当他讲这些产品回归到工具的属性时，同时使用纯净，简洁，一致性的美来描述他们。 他以这样的方式重新定义了物品和用户之间的联系。 他和他的伙伴创造产品的目的既不是为了自我展现，也不是纯粹地为了赚钱。他强调了我们与生产环境之间的关系，说出了用户和产品之间互相参与的重要规则。
A mock up of the D55 Braun pavilion at Ulm, 1955
For a designer to produce a couple of objects this significant and influential in their lifetime could define a movement. To produce more than 500 borders on the absurd. This speaks to perhaps a less obvious but critically important attribute of Rams – his ability to collaborate. The fact we know Rams primarily by his beautifully engineered and mass-manufactured products rather than his credo of good design, speaks volumes about his extraordinary collaborations within Braun. In defining individual products he also defined Braun. His was not an academic experiment in modernism.
对于一个职业生涯创造了几十件有意义的和流畅的产品的设计师来说，可以定义为一个运动。 对于一个生产了超过 500 件产品的用户来说有点荒谬。 这样说有一点低顾客 Rams 的重要贡献，他的整合能力。 我们对于他的了解主要来自于他的设计精美和大量工业化生产的作品，而不是他的设计理念。 在定义独立产品的同时他也定义了 Braun，他不是现代主义上的一个理论派。
He lived every day with the commercial realities and consequences of what he and his team designed. Equally, he lived with the organizational and structural consequences of the way he and his team worked. When you think of Braun, you immediately think of the products, not some abstract mission statement or charter. Our perception of these products is our perception of the brand. In a profession with more than its fair share of rhetoric, Dieter Rams succeeded in making his philosophy tangible by giving form and, ultimately, the relevance of mass production to his ideas. He remains utterly alone in producing a body of work so consistently beautiful, so right and so accessible." - Jonathan Ive.
他生活在一个由他和他的团队设计的产品包围的商业社会，同样的，他也生活在一个由他和他的团队创立的生活方式的社会。 当您想起博朗的时候，会立刻想起具体的产品，而不是一些抽象的概念描述或者其他字符。我们对于产品的认识就是我们对于博朗的认识。 在一个专业的社会内， Rams 成功的将他的设计理念同产品的外观和批量生产相结合。 他确保了产品外观工作的完全的独立性，同时确保产品的一致性，如何的合理和易接受。
