Braun

July 25, 2018 8:41 PM

A history of Braun Design [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Images with captions. Dieter Rams previously.

posted by unliteral (10 comments total)

Some of these designs are so bold in their minimalism. I have fond childhood memories of a Braun clock and juicer - both which could probably have withstood nuclear bombs...wish I had them. Looks like it's not easy to link directly to some of these, but some favorite diesigns:

1961 RT 20 Dieter Rams | img
1962 HG 1 Reinhold Weiss | img
posted by hampanda at 9:47 PM on July 25, 2018

Braun has always been revered in the design world, and for good reasons. Even today's industrial design lords, Apple's Jony Ives and Marc Newson, have been riffing off Braun, and especially the work of Dieter Rams at Braun, for years and years.

It's hard to imagine either the clickwheel iPod (Ives) or IkePod Solaris (Newson) without Rams.
posted by rokusan at 1:44 AM on July 26, 2018

This will be released this fall: Rams
posted by jonathanhughes at 3:59 AM on July 26, 2018

Of all the design wankery/experiences I have ever dragged my friends through, Hustwit's Helvetica brought me the least blowback, so I'll definitely check that out, Jonathan; thank you.
posted by rokusan at 5:18 AM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Put me in mind of the Braun spider robot from Neuromancer. Design strong enough that you could imagine a trajectory of development from electric razor to microdrone.
posted by zamboni at 5:19 AM on July 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

God, just looking around the o'l condo from hell and I see a Braun coffee grinder (with a recent replacement blade after 30 odd good years from the old one), a Braun hand blender (with a zillion attachments), a Braun shaver, etc. and nothing really bought for design esthetic (at least not consciously so), just for price/performance.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:50 AM on July 26, 2018

This will be released this fall: Rams
Fantastic. Thanks for the heads up, looking forward to that very much.
posted by unliteral at 6:12 AM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Braun AB1 travel alarm clock was absolute design perfection. I kind of hate that its function has been subsumed into phones.
posted by whuppy at 6:58 AM on July 26, 2018

"Of all the design wankery/experiences I have ever dragged my friends through, Hustwit's Helvetica brought me the least blowback, so I'll definitely check that out, Jonathan; thank you."

Gary Hustwit's film "Objectified" has a good chunk about Dieter Rams. If I recall, the DVD had a ton of additional scenes with him.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:05 AM on July 26, 2018

I have my Braun coffee grinder (the 1979 version) sitting on the kitchen counter, underneath the wall-mounted Braun hand blender: both bought in 1991. They always Just Work. Thank you, Chitownfats, for letting me know that it's possible to replace the blades if they ever need it. The world needs more immortal devices.
posted by jrochest at 12:46 PM on July 26, 2018