Vitsœ - The Power of Good Design | FREE Copy

Vitsœ currently offers three products designed by Dieter Rams: the 606 Universal Shelving System, the 620 Chair Programme and the 621 Table.

To celebrate the design principles coined by Dieter Rams, Vitsœ have published a pocket-sized compendium detailing these very principles – the ethos that underlies each and every step of the company.

Vitsœ and GOODS WE LIKE have teamed up with the aim to spread this design ethos as far as possible, making the publication accessible to everyone.

Note: the send-out of the free copies has now ended. If you wish to request a copy, please get in touch directly with Vitsœ.

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Founded in 1959 with the aim to allow more people to live better with less that lasts longer, renowned furniture company Vitsœ has consistently stood up to a world that appears to value only things that are new. For this reason, the London-based brand set out with the mission to make long-living furniture; always seeking to be better rather than newer. 

Live better with less that lasts longer.

The beauty about Vitsœ is that the company designs, makes and evolves furniture that lasts for generations. Based on this principle, Niels Vitsœ and Otto Zapf decided to establish a company to realise the furniture designs of Dieter Rams – known for his unobtrusive approach and belief in “less but better”. As one of the foremost industrial designers of the 20th century, the former Braun designer has not only shaped the Functionalist school of industrial design, but his design principles have been – and still are – an inspiration to a whole generation of designers.

Becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him, Rams asked himself probably one of the most important questions in his career: is my design good design? As good design can’t be expressed in finite terms, he set about expressing the ten most important principles for what he considered was good design. This chain of thought resulted in what is known as The Ten Principles for Good Design.

SIMON FREUND – A Young Conceptual Artist, Munich

Simon Freund is not only a close friend of ours, but he’s first and foremost an inspiring conceptual artist. A provocative thinker with a weakness for considered design, Simon lives and breathes somewhere along the lines planner by day and creative by night. He earns his daily bread at renowned furniture company Vitsœ who’s long-living products are rooted in the design philosophy of infamous product designer Dieter Rams - one of the few companies he truly values and respects. And ‘by night’, he conceptualises and creates…

Born in Königstein im Taunus – a dreamy little town in Germany – Simon’s work primarily focuses on the interplay between design and functionality, the concept of value and contemporary consumerism.  

Before Simon decided to pave the way for a more artistic expression of his work, he was running the premium lifestyle brand SIMON&ME (later Simon Freund) that he had founded back in 2010. As an autodidact, he has been working on numerous projects spanning from opening his own Berlin-based concept store – LOCAL – to web design, branding and several published works of art.
 

“I don’t really think I’m an artist, it’s just the best description for what I’m currently pursuing.”

One of the projects Simon is currently working on is fittingly titled all i possess – an ongoing online art installation that draws upon the notions of transparency, consumption and relentless materialism. All of the objects displayed on the site belong to the artist and have either been purchased by him or gifted to him at any given point in time. Documented with meticulous accuracy, all i possess not only reflects on the concept of ownership but rightly raises the question: how much is enough? Simon is currently living and working in Munich.

 
simonfreund.com 

buylessbutbetter.com 

allipossess.com 

kuuunst.com 

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The composition of images below is a personal selection of Simon's Favourite Works of Art, Favourite Products and the things that inspire him.

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Cedes Milano
Chrome Toothpaste/Tube Squeezer on Black Base – via The Line

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Magali Reus – Parking (Retainer)
Fibreglass, polyester resin, pigments, painted steel rod, silicone rubber, PVC, cotton
2014

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Crista Seya – collection #05

Hartwig Klappert – Waldinseln & Waldfahnen

Alicja Kwade
EADEM MUTATA RESURGO 3, 2013
door
216 x 50 x 30 cm
unique

A shot of Simon´s wardrobe at his home in Munich.

Kim De Ruysscher – crumbled paper 

BRANCUSI BARRETTE by Sophie Buhai 

Kiyoshi Mino
“Common Chimpanzee” (Pan Troglodytes)
via Chamber NYC

Metal Handstamp

Claire Rothstein – Margaux Brooke for P Magazin

Nicole Werners – Infrastruktur, 2015

Ian McIntyre – A Ton Of Clay

Hannes Caspar

muller van severen – cuttingboards, 2011

Linck Keramik – V5 by Margrit Linck

Gino Sarfatti – Mod. 548, 1951

Vitsoe 620 photographed by Rich Stapelton for Cereal Magazine

DOCUMENT – repetition and difference #03 

‘repetition and difference’ Thers is a difference between those that are repeated, creating a different repetition. 

Vitsoe 621

Robert Mapplethorpe – 23. Calla Lily, 1987 ( black and white )

‘His vast, provocative, and powerful body of work has established him as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century.’