The T3 transistor radio was Braun’s first pocket transistor radio and offers a clear illustration of Dieter Rams ’10 elements of good design’ principles at work. He believed that good design should make a product useful and understandable and that it should be innovative, aesthetic, unobtrusive, honest, longlasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and lastly, be as little design as possible.

The glacial style of the T3 is typical of the Braun product range that Rams designed, including the SK4 radiogram (Snow White’s coffin) and the Braun RT20 radio. Braun products demonstrated the importance of good design without compromise. They were technically superior to competitors and this was reflected in their purchase price. Braun’s owners (Artur and Erwin Braun) had to demonstrate considerable faith and patience in this philosophy before market acceptance rewarded it.

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