Dieter Rams vs. Pizza Hut: two faces of timeless branding
Designers often picture timelessness as clean, austere minimalism, but that’s only one version of it. In this clip from You’re Not the Audience, Parliament Creative Director Calvin Ross Carl sets Dieter Rams’ principle that good design is long-lasting against the return of Pizza Hut Classic, with its salad bars and Tiffany-style lamps. Rams represents visual and functional timelessness; Pizza Hut shows the cultural and brand timelessness that comes from generations of accumulated meaning, and Calvin argues great branders need to understand both. It’s from the You’re Not the Audience episode on timelessness, What the F*ck Is Timelessness?.
Watch the full episode
Outline
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl revisits his four categories of timelessness through two contrasting examples. The first is Dieter Rams, whose ten principles of design and work for Braun influenced Apple’s products. Rams’ seventh principle, that good design is long-lasting and avoids being fashionable, connects to his broader critique of a throwaway society.
The problem, Calvin says, is that designers focus only on the visual and functional categories, which is why they fawn over Rams. Timelessness isn’t just a minimalist, less-is-more aesthetic.
His second example is Pizza Hut Classic, the revival of the chain’s original restaurants with salad bars and Tiffany-style lamps. It breaks nearly every Rams principle, yet it carries deep cultural and brand timelessness, and people have a picture of it even if they’ve never been.
Highlights
Dieter Rams’ work for Braun went on to shape Apple’s design.
Rams’ seventh principle ties long-lasting design to a critique of throwaway society.
Designers tend to see only visual and functional timelessness.
Pizza Hut Classic shows timelessness without minimalism.
Generations of accumulated meaning make brands like Pizza Hut and Sizzler endure.
Key insights
Rams’ timelessness has a purpose
His call for long-lasting design sits alongside principles about less design, better quality, and the environment. It’s a response to throwaway culture, not just a style.
Minimalism isn’t the only path
Focusing on austere Germanic or Swiss design can blind designers to brands that last for entirely different reasons.
Cultural memory can outlast taste
Pizza Hut Classic isn’t pretty by design-world standards, but the shared memory of a pizzeria with a salad bar makes it powerful branding.
Great branders hold both ideas
Calvin argues that being really good at branding means being keyed into cultural and brand timelessness, not just the visual kind.
Detailed analysis
The clip uses a deliberately unlikely pairing to widen the definition of timelessness. Rams stands for the version designers admire: restraint, quality, and simplicity. Pizza Hut stands for a version designers might overlook: kitsch, warmth, and a strong sense of place.
The lesson for brand work is that equity and memory can make a brand timeless even when its aesthetic breaks the rules. A rebrand that strips those elements in pursuit of clean design risks throwing away what people actually remember.
Conclusion
Dieter Rams and Pizza Hut sit at opposite ends of the design spectrum, and both are timeless. Calvin’s takeaway is that brands earn longevity through meaning as much as through form.
Transcript
Let’s talk about some fun examples of timelessness. We already talked about Dieter Rams. So I think there are a couple of ways of looking at timelessness. Like I talked about, there are those categories: visual, functional, cultural, and brand timelessness, I think is what I said.
So Dieter Rams: absolutely legendary. Great ten principles of design, his manifesto. This is his company, Vitsœ, that he created after he designed all the Braun products. There are a bunch of examples of Braun products in here, which went on to influence all of the design of Apple products, basically. This is all great stuff. This manifesto is good forever.
He does have one really specific thing in this manifesto that I think relates to timelessness: principle number seven. “Good design is long-lasting. It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years, even in today’s throwaway society.” I feel like there’s a ton of stuff to pick apart in here, in a good way. The biggest element here is what he means by today’s throwaway society. And I think a lot of the other principles in here focus on less design, better quality, design that benefits the environment. A lot of those things then elevate the idea of why he’s talking about throwaway society.
But one problem is that I think designers focus only on the visual or functional categories of timelessness, which at the start is why we all just absolutely fawn over Dieter Rams. His stuff is beautiful. It’s simple. But there are reasons why it became so popular that are outside of the idea of timelessness. We’ll talk more about that in a second.
The other great example, because I think it’s important to remember that timelessness is not just aesthetic. At least, it is not just this minimalist, clean, less-is-more aesthetic. I’ve been talking about Pizza Hut. I’ve shown this on here before: Pizza Hut Classic. They’ve been bringing back all the classic Pizza Hut restaurants, and there are a couple hundred of them across the country. Yet still not one in Portland, which breaks my heart. As soon as there is one, we are all going. That’s going to be our company trip. They’ve got salad bars. They’ve got the classic Tiffany-style lamps. Beautiful.
And so I think to be really great at branding, you need to be keyed into this type of timelessness as well, which is deep cultural and brand timelessness. This stuff is not pretty. It’s not beautiful. It’s not less is more. It has almost none of the principles that Dieter Rams talks about. Yet it is just so beautiful, so good. We all have memories of it. Even if we haven’t been to Pizza Hut, there is something ingrained in our zeitgeist where we have an idea of what the pizzeria with a salad bar in it means. And I feel like it is easy for us as designers and branders to focus on that beautiful, austere type of Germanic or Swiss design, in the Dieter Rams style. But it’s worth remembering that this is also incredible branding.
Oh god, so much salad dressing. I think this stuff is just great. Oh god, it’s so good. Oh yeah, and all these photos. Look at that place. Absolutely legendary architecture. So good.
All these photos, I think, were taken by Noah Kalina, if you don’t know Noah Kalina. Whoops. Noah Kalina is a very fun photographer. Very popular. I’ll just post his stuff up here. It’s funny that he took these photos of Pizza Hut, because he’s really known for doing this project where he photographed his face every day for many, many years and then animated it all together. But he has a ton of really thoughtful, artful projects. He apparently photographs a lot of chicken eyes. I think these are all eyes of chickens that he owns now. So he’s an interesting photographer. I really love his stuff. Blankets. He does a lot of this repeat, the German school of photography: same form, different location.
But anyway, Pizza Hut is also a reminder that timelessness can be that level of cultural and deep brand timelessness. We all have generations of accumulated meaning behind Pizza Hut and brands like that: Round Table Pizza, Sizzler. I don’t know why I’m thinking all about restaurants, but those are all the places.