Less and More, The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams just opened at SFMOMA. We attended the show and met Rams who at 80 appears as elegant and timeless as much of his design. The exhibition elevates the stature of one of the great industrial designers of the modern era.  Rams’ importance compares to Achille Castiglioni of Italy or to Charles and Ray Eames of the US.  In the US Rams often flies under the radar, except in connection to a range of Braun kitchen products and a calculator that set the standard for elegant modern design in the 70’s. But hard-core designers have always revered Rams’ body of work, which includes seminal electronics, radio, audio visual, and related industrial design.

Compare Rams’ Braun 1958 T3 Pocket Transistor Radio and Apple’s first Ipod and you’ll sense his influence. Or compare Rams’ Braun ET88 pocket calculator to the Apple iphone. Jonathan Ive at Apple may be Rams’ most well known design disciple.

Rams’ design philosophy serves as a great benchmark for PUBLIC bikes. We’ve listed his ten commandments below with some footnotes. We’ve added one more commandment – good design should put a smile on your face.

Dieter Rams 10 Design Commandments

1)   Good design is innovative.
Our bikes are not radical pieces of innovation. But we’ve taken the classic bike and made it an integrated system and visual statement including fenders, racks, and baskets.

2) Good design makes a product useful.
What is more useful than a practical everyday bike?

3) Good design is aesthetic.
Good form, color, feel, and simplicity are part of the PUBLIC DNA.

4) Good design makes a product understandable.
Nothing is hidden with our bikes – they are easy to use and understand.

5) Good design is honest.
No tricks or false appearances with our products.

6) Good design is unobtrusive.
We use light steel-frames for the demands of city riding.

7) Good design is long lasting.
We use high quality steel frames and forks and spec components that will endure as long as the aesthetics.

8) Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
We pay close attention to all the components and details.

9) Good design is environmentally friendly.
City bikes help reduce carbon emissions, reduce the number of cars off the streets, and make our communities safer for everyone.

10) Good design is as little design as possible.
There is nothing superfluous or non-essential in the design of our bikes.

We’ll add one for Dieter.

11) Good design should put a smile on your face.
A little color and play can help to bring more people to design and put a smile on many faces.

Rob is the Chief PUBLIC Servant. He founded PUBLIC because of his belief that well-designed PUBLIC spaces are the bedrock of civilization.

The best thing about this business is getting to know our customers and hearing their stories. Our customers come in all different shapes and sizes and from a variety of professions and locations. They keep in touch with us in any manner of ways.   Some come by our South Park headquarters, some meet us on the road when we visit cities for urban transportation events, some share photos on our Flickr group, and some send us nice notes like these:

“Today I rode 24 miles on my 7-speed PUBLIC step-thru bike and the bike did great – 12 bike path miles and 12 hilly Cape Cod roads around the ocean and through the ponds. I tackled each hill and stayed comfortable. Very pleased with my PUBLIC bike.” – Vanessa Allen, Newton, MA

“Nearly a year since purchasing my PUBLIC D3, I have logged more than a thousand miles on it commuting to and from work in Columbus Ohio – even in 15 degree weather. I am on my original tires and have only done light preventative maintenance. If you’re on the fence as to whether to buy one, trust me you won’t regret it.”  – Shane Neff

“Just got off my Public bike, not 24 hours ago!!!  Love that thing and I get compliments on it all of the time.” – Scott Kerslake, CEO Prana

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT: Alex Bogusky

We like to share interesting customer stories, creations, and photos.  PUBLIC customer and advertising icon Alex Bogusky, his wife Ana, designer John Bielenberg, and creative strategist Rob Schuham launched the fantastic new venture COMMON. “COMMON is a living network of creative people rapidly prototyping dozens or hundreds of progressive businesses designed to solve social problems.” They put together an inspiring video to introduce their mission.

A COMMON STORY from m ss ng p eces on Vimeo.

Last Friday night in Boulder, CO they hosted an event to support and incite a competitive market for socially minded entrepreneurs.  The finalists encourage a business world with educated and empowered consumers.  Read the Washington Post article to find out the winning products.

If you ride a PUBLIC or know someone who does with an inspiring story, share it with us. We’ll feature it in a future customer spotlight.

MEET US IN LAS VEGAS – JOIN US AT BURNING MAN

Dan Nguyen-Tan, our PUBLIC Citizen, brings innovative marketing and customer programs to our business. Dan will be in Las Vegas at the Interbike trade show where we are teaming up with Peterboro Baskets.  You can connect with Dan at Interbike – just drop him a note. If you have a bike shop that would like to carry PUBLIC bikes, this would be a good place to meet us and chat.

Dan will also be at Burning Man next week. If you see a half naked guy riding in the playa, that will not be Dan. For one week, Burning Man’s Black Rock City becomes the bicycle capital of the world with almost everyone riding bicycles to get around. Read more about the bicycle culture of Black Rock City by our friend Matthew Roth.

What do the Sierra Club and Moving Design of Chicago have in common?

City bicycling is getting support from an ever-increasing eclectic list of organizations. Every month it seems we partner with some cool group working to encourage more people to incorporate a bicycle into their daily urban lives.

This month we’re working with two very unique groups, The Sierra Club, one of the largest national environmental advocacy organizations, and Moving Design, a small design-based group in Chicago.  Both groups use their unique skills to encourage people to rethink the way we get around in our communities and to reduce our dependency on cars and fossil fuels.

The Sierra Club
Founded in 1892 by John Muir, The Sierra Club has over a million members and supporters and is one of most influential grassroots organizations in the United States. They literally defined environmental activism for many of us. The Sierra Club is giving away three PUBLIC bikes to encourage more people to leave their cars at home. You can enter to win by going to The Sierra Club website or visiting The Sierra Club Facebook page.

The Sierra Club also created a video, with help from our friends at Agency Charlie, to showcase how someone can move around their community by bicycle instead of a car.

Two Mornings from Sierra Club National on Vimeo.

We all recognize that we need our cities to become more livable and dense in population in order to reduce urban sprawl and protect our environment. We’re happy to team up with The Sierra Club to invite more people to make a difference on city streets.  While our partnership with The Sierra Club may not have the same dramatic effect on our environment as NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s recent $50 million gift to The Sierra Club to reduce coal consumption, we’re happy to do our part.

Moving Design
Founded in 2010 by renowned graphic designer Rick Valicenti, Moving Design is pushing a number of civic-minded community based projects in Chicago. They hosted an event this week in Chicago where City Planner Adolfo Hernandez and PUBLIC Founder Rob Forbes made presentations on urban bicycling and the progress to make Chicago streets more livable.

Chicago has been an international leader in urban architecture dating back a century. In recent years they have again launched themselves into international prominence with the development of Millennium Park, which includes the fantastic Anish Kapoor Cloud Gate (aka “The Bean”), the Jaume Plensa Crown Fountain video sculpture, the Lurie Garden, and the Jay Pritzker Pavillion designed by Frank Gehry in Grant Park.  Former Chicago Mayor Daley and the spirited civic-minded community can be credited for these monumental achievements. We rode by these projects and the lakeshore as we biked around Chicago this week.  See photos.  We hope new Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and groups like Moving Design continue to make Chicago an example of a modern livable city with blue bike lanes across the city.

We’d like to thank all the friends and fans who submitted entries to our Photo Contest in July. We received over a hundred entries. As with most contests, picking the winners is not easy – many submissions deserve recognition. So we put together a gallery that shows the diverse range of the finalists.

A unique perspective can change the way we view our everyday lives – experiencing the public world from a bike is one way to get a new perspective. We selected our finalists based on the photos that helped us see the world a little differently.

Congratulations to our grand prize winners Colleen McHugh, Jenny Chang, Michael Wang, and Maureen Jacobs. They all win weekend stays at a select group of hotels that feature PUBLIC Bikes.

Click on the photos in the left column to view in high resolution. Colleen McHugh’s photo dealt with one of our favorite topics – creative use of public space. It’s a provocative photo from an overhead perspective with fantastic details and light. Jenny Chang got us to consider bicycle shadows – they transform a common sidewalk into a compelling composition. Michael Wang captured a bike taxi in Kota Bharu, Malaysia – a rich assemblage of lights and shapes that asks us to rethink the ways we repurpose objects and personalize bikes. Maureen Jacobs turned a concrete freeway structure into an aesthetically pleasing, modern, and sculptural form.

PUBLIC SPACE by Colleen McHugh

BICYCLES by Jenny Chang

FUN by Michael Wang

ART by Maureen Jacobs

Moving Design is an creative activist group doing some amazing things in Chicago such as transforming Logan Square into a hub for safe, active mobility, where pedestrians and bikers rule. Logan Square will serve as a model for other neighborhoods. The goal is to improve the quality of life, public safety and health, and community cohesion across the city. Rob Forbes, PUBLIC Founder, and Adolfo Hernandez, Director of Outreach & Advocacy at Active Transportation Alliance will be speaking. Come join us on August 15th at 6:30 pm at Wright (1440 W. Hubbard St.). The event is sponsored by Moving Design and VSA Partners and is open to the public – tickets are $10.

Check out PUBLIC bikes in Modcloth’s current Stylebook featuring “the sweetest of dresses, skirts, and shoes that you’ll want to wear everywhere.”

Check out these two custom bikes we did for hip clients in California: a paisley PUBLIC D8 and a leopard print PUBLIC C7. These are just two examples – check out more Custom PUBLIC Bikes. We are happy to quote a special price on Custom PUBLIC Bikes for your group or company. There is no extra charge for orders of 50 bikes or more.

A lot of clients ask us “who designs your bikes?”  We do.  The geometry of the design is founded on function and comfort. All of our frames have an upright ergonomic ride. Everyday people, of all shapes and sizes, guide our design process. Professional racing is not the intent; PUBLIC bikes respond to the everyday utilitarian rider.  What sets them apart is the attention to practical and quality details such as fenders, chain guards, smooth shifting systems, and comfortable seats.

Our role models are classic European bikes of the 20^th century, embodied in this French Mercier Meca Dural 3 Speed Randonneuse – i.e. a cool Parisian bike from the 50’s. This aluminum bike adorns our South Park studio.

Looking at the Mercier is inspirational – a constant reminder that good design is timeless and that form, function, innovation, and style can be built into an everyday city bike. The mixte frame, constructed of aluminum tubing, was very radical and technologically innovative in the 1950’s. The geometry of the mixte frame suited both men and women. Back when ladies’ slacks were not in style in Paris, the Mercier’s unisex frame invited women to bicycle in a skirt or a dress. Some of its most striking qualities are the handsome hammered fenders, a sexy chair guard, visually integrated front and rear lights, a shock-absorbing seatpost, and a nice splash of color (the red tires). Practical necessities were incorporated into the functional design: a bell, rack, light, and chain guard.

The French have been designers of mobility for centuries.  Their love affair with the invention and refinement of the bicycle continues today with the amazing Vélib’ bike-share system that set a standard for the rest of Europe in 2007. But bikes aren’t the only mode of transportation the French have pioneered. Their Metro amazed the world in 1900 and is a landmark in urban transportation design.  The Deux Chevaux car is as iconic as Chanel #5. And then there’s the SST Concorde, 1976.  Just as with style, the French have an obsession with speed and mobility. So it is no surprise that it is home to the Tour de France.

Our “M” series has a French Heritage
The Mercier frame was a precursor to the “mixte” – the frame style made popular by Peugeot and many other followers. It became one of the most fashionable city frame styles in history. Countless vintage mixte bikes can still be seen on the streets here and abroad. The lightly scaled tubing is especially elegant, and the structure has a special appeal to architects and designers.  This was the inspiration for our PUBLIC mixte frame bikes – the M models – that continue to be our most popular internal hub bikes. It’s a unisex style that works on city streets as well as on hip corporate campuses that provide bikes for employees.