Gestalt-Ingenieur

“I am troubled by the devaluing of the word ‘design’. I find myself now being somewhat embarrassed to be called a designer. In fact I prefer the German term, Gestalt-Ingenieur. Apple and Vitsoe are relatively lone voices treating the discipline of design seriously in all corners of their businesses. They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously.”

– Dieter Rams

(in this telepgraph.co.uk article)

(via coudal)

7 Comments leave a comment below

  1. It’s really somehting else to say after his comment??

    Thanks for uploading this quote. This kind of words is what a student

    needs to hear.

    Good Vibes

  2. …and clients need to hear, also.

  3. I think most designers “get it”. I find clients often don’t… The ones that do are gold.

  4. I understand what you sayin and i agree. We all had the expirence of

    having a bad client, but i belive that is part of our job to teach our clients

    so they can change their mind.

  5. Very well said by Dieter. He really does come out with some wonderful quotes.

  6. He’s right about Apple according to his area of industrial design.
    But in the area of graphic design Apple has made a lot of deeply embarassing stuff that does NOT take graphics seriously at all. Just take a look at their “Templates” in iWork, iWeb and their sickeningly “funky” backgrounds in iDVD and iPhoto-books.

    But maybe graphic design isn’t a “serious profession”?

    Tina? Folks?

  7. Is very hard to find a leader company that has a perfect image.

    About the tempates, that something that happends in all programs, look

    in illustrator or the program you want, they all going to suck!

    Also about Apple is that they are creating leader concept design, they

    are the ones in the top that teach all the other companies how to do

    things right.

    What is a serious profession? Lawyer? Economist? Architect?

    Is all the same for me, with they differences of course.

    Its sound ambiguous but is all the same, We have a profession, a

    way of living that our main goal is to earn as much money as

    possible. So what is serious?