CONCEPT
Principle Seven — Designing for Time
Rams's seventh principle — that good design is long-lasting, avoids fashion, and never appears antiquated — extended to critique the compressed product cycles of contemporary digital production.
The seventh of Rams's ten principles holds that good design is long-lasting: it avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated; unlike fashionable design, it endures for years even in today's throwaway society. The principle is not about mechanical durability, though that is a necessary condition. It is about cultural durability — the capacity of a design to survive the passage of the cultural moment that produced it. The 606 Universal Shelving System has been in continuous production since 1960. The 620 Chair Program has been continuously produced since 1962. The ET66 calculator was designed in 1987 and remains in use today. Each is the proof that design for time is possible, and that the compressed product cycles of digital production are not inevitable but chosen.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The principle demands that the designer resist the fashion of the moment — not by ignoring contemporary currents but by designing according to standards that transcend them.