Braun, a German consumer electronics company has been known for their innovative designs and sleek styling since the 1950’s. One of Braun’s chief designers, Dieter Rams, has become a design icon and his trademark minimalist style has influenced Apple products. Braun was always about the design and quality of their products, a source of corporate pride and identity. In 1983, they were bringing a major new design to market, the KF40 coffee machine. There was a disagreement over the plastic used between the industrial designer, who wanted absolute perfection, and a business director, who was willing to make compromises to start selling coffee makers. Braun were known for white appliances with an absolutely smooth surfaces, aimed at middle to upper class consumers. To achieve this look, they used expensive polycarbonate, which was a stylish, smooth plastic that was both tough and cosmetically pleasing. However, to meet cost targets, the KF-40 needed to be built with a newer and much cheaper material, polypropylene, which was not smooth and impossible to mold into the complex shapes required to manufacture the KF40. There was a conflict between the head of development, who wanted to meet time and cost targets and the lead designer, and stipulated the use of polypropylene, and the lead industrial designer, who came up with a solution that was both cheap and elegant, a non-smooth, ridged design that utilized polypropylene, but maintained Braun’s reputation for style and minimalism.
