This is entry five of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

In describing the principle Good design is unobtrusive, Dieter Rams wrote that good designs should “be both neutral and restrained, leaving room for the user’s self-expression.” In other words, a good design allows its users to focus fully on and gain maximum benefit from using it without noticing how it has been constructed. Good design has a specificity of purpose with a built-in freedom of interpretation.

This notion brings to mind the concepts presented within “The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible” from Beatrice Warde’s The Crystal Goblet, Sixteen Essays on Typography. In typographic circles The Crystal Goblet is often referred to for its thesis that encourages the use of typography to serve the text instead of the vanity of the designer. Warde clearly rejected the avant-garde in typography as introspective, believing that classical typography proved a ‘clearly polished window’ through which ideas could be communicated. Similarly, I believe that Rams is trying to communicate the importance of the positioning of a design within daily life.

This notion is important in that a design, when properly executed, shouldn’t get in the way of its objective. Consider the fact that most everything in our world is an object of distinct design. Objects are typically created with a specific purpose in mind. They are designs that serve a specific function. But design can be so unobtrusive as to go unnoticed. When an object achieves this delicate balance, it simply exists. It enhances life. When put into practice, this principle helps a design to graduate to a different status of usability – sometimes even becoming as timeless as the work of masters such as Dieter Rams.

While there is room for obtrusive design, it is essentially disposable. And in being disposable these objects seem to negate the effort invested in their own creation. To use the metaphor of music, obtrusive design is Britney Spears. Unobtrusive design is The Beatles.

Duane King wrote on Rams’ fifth principle, Good design is unobtrusive. Mr King is the author of  the upcoming book The Grid System and of Co-Founder of Thinking for a Living. Damien Correll created the above illustration based on Mr King’s essay. Mr Correll is a designer and co-founder of the studio Part & Parcel. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, IdN and Juxtapose.