The 10 Principles of Good Design
Principles from one of the most influential designers alive, Dieter Rams.
Happy Monday Everyone!
This week’s newsletter is about ‘Good Design’. My digital marketing agency is currently undergoing a rebrand. We plan to re-launch to have a greater social presence. This had led me to think a lot about our new aesthetic, look and feel. This article is going to be based on brand design and the importance of design in business.
I started learning about design studying from one of the most influential designers alive, Dieter Rams, head of Braun in 1961-1995. Dieter shaped a lot of brand thinking and created the fundamentals and principles of design. This can be applied to industrial design, product design, brand design and web design.
Dieter created 10 principles of good design, which are:
Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetically pleasing and consistent
Good design makes a product or service understandable
Good design makes a product unobtrusive (as easy as possible for someone to use)
Good design is honest
Good design is long lasting
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally friendly
Good design is as little design as possible. Less is truly more.
Design is one of the most important factors when building a brand, it is important to put a lot of time, effort and even money into this. Good design plays a huge role in your company or brand's perception and ultimately increases your company’s value, sets you apart from your competition and boosts sales, making your business more profitable.
When starting out my agency I didn’t care much about our branding, mainly because I was more focused on growing the business and building case studies. Now that we’ve reached a certain stage and want to start attracting more high end clients, good design is extremely important because it will showcase us as a trustworthy agency that can deliver great work as soon as they come across us. Great branding allows your brand to do the talking and justifies your prices.
Here are a few things we thought deeply about for our rebrand;
Who are our clients and what aesthetic do they appreciate?
What font are we going to use?
What colours are we going to use? And what do these colours say about our brand? (colours have different meanings so it’s very important to decide colours based on what you want to evoke)
How can we design an enjoyable experience for our clients?
The values we integrate into our designs are the same values as Dieter Rams
Simplicity - less is truly more, providing great clarity about who we are, what we do and why you should work with us.
Modesty - Our branding should be obvious from the beginning, for example when someone visits our website, they should already know what type of business we are, what services we offer etc. It shouldn’t be a maze to find out about us.
User Experience - It is important that we create a welcoming experience for all those that come into contact with our brand. We do this through our website which should be easy to navigate and user friendly. It’s also important to make your branding assets accessible to everyone such as those that may have visual impairments.
Longevity - It is important to create something that is long lasting and consistent, we do not plan to have another rebrand anytime soon, instead we want to get it right now and keep improving and building on what we’ve created.
All in all good design is important because it helps you position your brand. I am not a graphic designer however, it is important for me to understand design and the fundamental role it plays in business. I hope this article has been helpful leading you to do a deep dive into your branding and helps shape your future design processes.
My agency also offers design packages whether that's web design, branding assets, guidelines and frameworks, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need any assistance.
Have a great week everyone! My closing words are a great quote from Dieter Rams “You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people. Design is made for people.”