From Ulm to Apple: Germany's Legacy in Silicon Valley

In 2011, design critic Sophie Lovell published a book titled "Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible" (Phaidon). The foreword was written by Apple's Chief Design Officer, Jonathan Ive.
In the foreword, Ive referred to Rams as "a pioneer who defined our work" and stated that "less but better" was at the core of his design philosophy. It was a moment when the design chief of the world's most valuable company officially acknowledged his personal admiration for a German industrial designer from the 1950s and 60s.
But how did this lineage come about?

Direct Lineage – HfG → Braun → Apple

There is a clear lineage of design philosophy transmission between the Ulm School of Design (HfG) and Apple.
In 1954, HfG professor Hans Gugelot became a consultant for Braun, introducing a unified design language across their entire product range. In 1955, Dieter Rams joined Braun as an in-house designer and began collaborating with Gugelot. After the SK4 ("Snow White's Coffin") in 1956, Braun's product line became a benchmark for industrial design, embodying "the visualization of function," "honesty of materials," and "the elimination of ornamentation."
Rams was neither a graduate nor a teacher at HfG. However, through Gugelot, he absorbed HfG's methodology and deepened it at Braun. This is why he is credited as "the designer who most purely materialized the Ulm philosophy into products."

Evidence from the Products Themselves

The visual similarities between Braun and Apple products are not coincidental.
The 1956 Braun SK4 was a player with a white metal casing and a clear acrylic lid. Apple computers, starting with the Macintosh, continued the theme of "white casings that don't hide functions" as an extension of this idea. The 1987 Braun calculator ET66 featured a clear key layout, including a yellow equals (=) button. The design of the calculator app on the first iPhone is known to be an homage to this ET66. Ive himself is recorded in biographies as describing this as "a warm gesture of respect."

Among these, the Braun T3 pocket radio, released in 1958, is often cited. Its central circular dial has been a classic comparative example in design history for its visual similarity to the iPod click wheel, which appeared in 2001. Rams himself later commented on the innovativeness of the T3: "At the time of its release, I think it was a truly innovative product. Looking back, I would call it the 'first Walkman'" (Wallpaper* magazine).

However, there's a difference between "visually similar" and "directly inspired." In an interview with Fast Company in 2013, there was testimony that the direct inspiration for the iPod click wheel came from Danish Bang & Olufsen products. The lineage is continuous, but not a straight line.

Steve Jobs and the Bauhaus Conversation

In 1983, Steve Jobs spoke at the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) and discussed the philosophy of the Bauhaus. His phrase, "to make it simple, truly simple," originated from this lecture.
The venue for the conference, the Aspen Institute facilities, was designed by Herbert Bayer, one of the last surviving members of the Bauhaus. Jobs spoke about the Bauhaus in a building designed by the Bauhaus.
Jobs is said to have often spoken about "simplicity" as an abstract concept rather than directly naming Rams or Braun. However, Walter Isaacson's biography "Steve Jobs" (2011) records Jobs mentioning Braun's electronic devices — as a direction to package them in a small, beautifully white form.

The Irony of the Samsung Lawsuit

The irony of history was most vividly displayed in the 2012 patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung. Apple sued Samsung for imitating its product designs, and ultimately Samsung was ordered to pay $548 million in damages.
The lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in a 2016 hearing, numerous designers, including Dieter Rams, signed an amicus brief in support of Apple. It was an ironic historical situation where Rams' work was considered the origin of the designs allegedly imitated by Samsung, yet Rams himself stood with Apple.
Rams himself was not critical of his influence on Apple. He stated, "It's a compliment that they use the same basic design philosophy." For Rams, the issue wasn't whether to imitate, but whether to understand and use the philosophy correctly.

Towards Design Thinking – Global Spread of Methodology

Ulm's legacy was not limited to product design.
The "design methodology" systematized by HfG — the process of defining problems, solving them based on evidence, and verifying them — permeated design education worldwide from the 1970s onwards. "Design Thinking," popularized by Stanford University's d.school and IDEO, is said to be a modern reinterpretation of HfG's methodology.
In Japan, this lineage quietly lives on. Professor Shutaro Mukai of Musashino Art University studied at HfG Ulm. Influenced by him, Naoto Fukasawa became the creative director of MUJI, creating the philosophical foundation for a brand whose philosophy is "Kanketsu" (simplicity). The essence of Ulm has traveled from Germany to Silicon Valley, and even to the shelves of mass retailers in Japan.
The spirit of German product design, which began with Bauhaus, was refined into a methodology at Ulm, and then translated into everyday products by Braun. This lineage lives on not only in global brands like Apple and MUJI but also in today's ZACK products. Only what is necessary, in the necessary form. What exists there is not ornamentation, but a quiet beauty born from function.

Photo: PeterAjtony / CC BY-SA 4.0. Braun T3 (1958), designed by Dieter Rams. Trimmed, enhanced, AI background generated, monochrome processed.

This article is part of the German Design Lineage | 100 Years of Function and Beauty archive.