Dieter Rams joined Braun as a junior designer in 1955.
The Braun company made domestic electrical products: radios, TVs, record-players, kitchen mixers, electric shavers, etc.
Their products were basic and functional and fitted Rams’ concept of what good design should be: simple and minimalist.
But at the time homes were furnished in the pre-war style: heavy, upholstered, wood and cloth furniture, Braun’s severe style didn’t fit with that old-fashioned look.
But a company called Vitsoe+Zapf showed interest in Rams’ designs, they made shelving, chairs, tables, cupboards, etc.
They asked him if he’d do some freelance design for them.
So, evenings and weekends when he’d finished his day job, Rams designed their furniture the way he designed the Braun products: minimalist and functional.
His Vitsoe+Zapf designs were so successful they asked him to do more, but Rams decided this was becoming a conflict of interest.
So he went to see Artur and Erwin Braun and asked them whether they wanted him to stop freelancing.
And here’s the really creative part.
Most companies would immediately say: “Of course you must quit freelancing, we’re paying you to design for us not someone else.”
But the Braun brothers didn’t say that.
They said: “Go ahead, we don’t make furniture so there is no conflict of interest.
In fact, if people buy the furniture you’re designing, it can only be good for Braun.”
That decision is the really creative leap.
What they’d realised was that most homes were furnished with old-fashioned heavy, upholstered wood and cloth furniture.
But younger people were beginning to furnish apartments and they didn’t want the same old-fashioned look their parents had.
They’d buy stylish modern furniture made from plastic and metal.
And if they did, then Braun products would fit perfectly with these new designs.
So, by letting Rams freelance designing furniture, Braun was actually creating the market for their own products.
And that’s exactly what happened: Rams designed bookshelves, sofas, chairs and tables for Vitsoe+Zapf and it all fitted perfectly with his designs for Braun’s home-appliances.
The more the furniture sold, the more Braun electrical goods sold.
Both companies grew and, over the next few decades, changed our design aesthetic.
What we now recognise as good design came from Rams’ furniture designs and his designs for Braun electronics.
Without them there would have been no Habitat, no Ikea and, as Jonathan Ive admits, Apple certainly wouldn’t look the way it does.
Year after year, Ive designed new Apple products: the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad.
Each design was groundbreaking, but Ive freely admits, his inspiration was always Dieter Rams’ work.
And all because the Braun brothers were smart enough to see that they didn’t have to be protective about their work, or frightened other people would steal it.
The most important thing was to create a market for their product, and they did it by giving their ideas away not by hoarding them.
The common misconception is that by keeping our ideas to ourself we retain ownership of them.
But the Braun brothers let Dieter Rams freelance because the more broadly his style of design spread, the more people wanted to buy their products.
Hoarding ideas is stifling them, keeping them to ourself means they can’t spread and grow.
Whereas sharing our creativity is like spreading seeds on the ground.
By giving our ideas away, by teaching others, by lecturing, writing articles, working in different disciplines, even working for free sometimes, we can find different ways to spread what we do.
We are in advertising, this is the very last place to be shy or secretive.
The more we give our ideas away, the more they grow, the bigger the market for our ideas, in places we hadn’t even thought of.
We can grow our own market.