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Reader Submitted: RZR: A Modern Redesign of the Classic Shaving Razor

After becoming increasingly concerned by the state of design around him in the early 1980s—or what he called “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colors and noises"—industrial designer Dieter Rams established for himself what is now known as the Ten Principles of Good Design. These design principles—which have since been used by many companies, including Apple—include "good design makes a product understandable” and “good design is long-lasting,” among others.

More recently, Dutch industrial designer Patrick Schuur put these ten principles into context when he set out to redesign the classic men’s razor for a client who wanted to create a no-nonsense wet shaving system that merges rituals of the past with the comforts provided by today’s manufacturing capabilities. Starting with four main requirements for the finished product—comfort, sustainability, beauty and value—from RZR founders Marco Vermeer and Remco Smit, Schuur dove head-first into bringing the next-generation razor concept to life with modern design and rapid prototyping processes.