From the London-based furniture manufacturer Vitsœ (gotta love a furniture store that values bicycle transportation enough to place bike racks INSIDE their showroom):

Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?

As good design cannot be measured in a finite way, he set about expressing the ten most important criteria for what he considered to be good design. Subsequently they have become known as the ‘Ten commandments’. Here they are.

Good design is:

• Innovative
• Useful
• Aesthetic
• Self-explanatory
• Unobtrusive
• Honest
• Durable
• Thorough
• Environmentally-friendly
• As little design as possible