Braun

Braun is the German company that in the 1950s and 1960s shaped the modern design of household electrical goods: radios, record players, shavers, blenders, alarm clocks, calculators. Simple, clear objects, almost always white, grey or black, that are still considered a model of Functionalism and Good Design.

From radios to shavers

In 1921 the mechanical engineer Max Braun opened a small workshop in Frankfurt. From 1923 he made radio components and from 1929 complete radios, becoming one of Germany's leading manufacturers. In 1935 the Braun brand was born, with its famous raised “A”. The first electric shaver, the S 50, designed in 1938, only came out in 1951 because of the war: it was the beginning of the product Braun is still best known for. That same year Max Braun died and the company passed to his sons Erwin and Artur.

The turning point of 1955

The two brothers decided to renew the look of their products completely. They put Fritz Eichler in charge of design and brought in teachers from the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, the school founded by Otl Aicher among others as an heir to the Bauhaus. In 1956 came the SK 4 radiogram, designed by Hans Gugelot and the young Dieter Rams: a white metal box with light wooden sides and a clear Plexiglas lid, instead of the heavy radio cabinets of the time. Germans jokingly nicknamed it “Snow White's coffin”.

Dieter Rams

Rams, an architect who joined Braun in 1955, became head of design in 1961 and remained so until his retirement in 1997. With his team he designed the T3 pocket radio, modular hi-fi systems, the Sixtant shaver, the alarm clocks designed with Dietrich Lubs and the ET 66 calculator (1987). His philosophy is summed up in the motto “less, but better” and in his ten principles of good design: a good product is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly and has as little design as possible. Many Braun objects are now at MoMA and the Centre Pompidou.

From Braun to Apple

In 1967 Braun came under the control of the American company Gillette, which was in turn acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2005. Today Braun mainly makes shavers and personal-care products, while its small kitchen appliances are made under licence by De'Longhi. Rams's legacy, however, goes beyond the company: Apple designer Jonathan Ive has often acknowledged his debt to him, and the resemblance between the T3 radio and the first iPod has become a textbook case.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Braun (en)
• Wikipedia – Dieter Rams (en)
• Wikipedia – Ulm School of Design (en)