Dieter Rams

it's no coincidence that this simple but elegant show, 'Less and More: the Design Ethos of Dieter Rams', on chief designer of German tech-company Braun, should come to the Design Museum under the directorship of Deyan Sudjic. In Sudjic's previous guise, as design critic and author of seminal 1985 book 'Cult Objects', he wrote of how Dieter Rams elevated humble electric shavers 'to the status of works of art'. He also revealed that Braun 'means Brown and is pronounced Brown', while visiting the suitably minimalist and monochrome offices of Rams in Frankfurt.

The designer's motto, 'My aim is to omit everything superfluous', came true as early as 1956, when he successfully conflated the record player, speaker and radio into the SK4, a handsome, portable, all-in-one hi-fi unit - clearly the iPod of its day - perhaps unfairly dubbed 'Snow White's Coffin' for its see-through lid. Lacking his vision, the rest of the audio industry concentrated on stereo separates, forcing Rams to follow and then exceed fashion by creating some of the most stylish stand-alone turntables ever conceived.

Indeed, the world's design debt to Rams is made clear at the end of this show, through heavily Braun-influenced homages to simplicity by Apple, Rowenta and Muji.

Typically for Braun, all is solid, blocky and moulded in black, white or shaded pastel plastics, but Rams wasn't so stiff as to ignore the human touch entirely, adding a leather strap here or some wood detailing there.

Braun still makes shavers, travel alarm clocks, hairdryers and many more handheld tools of the everyday (everyone has owned one of these products at some time) but it's a shame that the curators haven't seen fit to omit the superfluous themselves: leaving in no fewer than 16 lighters and seven electronic flash boxes - wholly unnecessary comprehensiveness given the show's title.