Dieter Rams is a living legend. As Braun's head designer for almost 35 years, he defined what simple, functional products should look like--in fact, if you own anything by Apple, you've got Dieter Rams to thank, because their products are basically a long-running homage to Rams's designs from the 1960s.

On Friday, London's Design Museum opens a mammoth survey of the more 500 objects that Rams designed in his 50 year career, "Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams." Here are some highlights.

Among designers, Rams is famous for his 10 Principles of Good Design, which he wrote in the early 1980s, as a kind of summary to an entire life spent in design. #1: Good design makes a product useful. #9: Good design is concerned with the environment. #10: Good design is as little design as possible. The list has never really been topped, and today's designers still live with those tenets.

One of his iconic shavers, the 300 Special DL 3 (1955).

The Audio 300 Radio-phone combination for Braun (1969)

The SuperHet VHF and medium wave radio for Braun (1961)

Rams himself didn't invent totally from whole cloth. His work at Braun was dedicated to distilling the essence of the company's best designs, such as the SK2 Radio, designed in 1955 by Artur Braun and Fritz Eicher.

It's hard to imagine a radio more handsome than the T 1000 Portable radio, from 1969.

The 606 Universal Shelving System from 1960, which is still be manufactured by Vitsœ. If Apple ever designed furniture, it would probably look a lot like this.

If you're curious to Rams's pieces stateside and you're in New York, you've got a couple options: Some of them are on display in MoMA's permanent collection. But better than that, Vitsœ has actually just opened a boutique near SoHo, filled with Ram's furniture and objects. In the foreground, his 620 chair; the background, the 606 shelving, and one of Ram's radios for Braun.