HOW DESIGN HELPED SHAPE THE IPOD

From Braun to Bauhaus

Have you ever looked at your iPod and thought 'how Bauhaus'? Probably not. But it is. Observe...

The core Bauhaus philosophy is all about function over form. To the Bauhaus types, a design that looked good but didn't work intuitively was useless. Well, duh. They also thought that students should use techniques used in other disciplines - like, say, taking a method from sculpture and applying it to architecture - to create the best product possible.

Apple's core philosophy isn't that far from Bauhaus, especially the part about marrying art and technology. In fact, Steve Jobs once said that the only problem with his competitors was that 'they have no taste'. Ooh, get her! Hence, then, Apple's focus on simplicity above all - a Bauhaus philosophy that stands them apart from the 'more more more' philosophy of most tech companies. Apple's approach is reminiscent of another Bauhaus-influenced company, Braun, who made the iPod-a-like T3 pocket radio [pictured] in the sixties.

Braun were headed by the fabulously-named Dieter Rams, who was himself heavily-influenced by the approach Bauhaus took to design. He took their philosophy and distilled it into a 10-step design principle which is still referenced to this day. Weirdly, for an ethos which places function over form, everything still managed to look blisteringly cool.

Funny that…