Braun began in February 1921 when engineer Max Braun established a small engineering workshop in Frankfurt. The company’s early work was closely connected to the rapidly developing radio industry, initially producing radio components before expanding into complete radio equipment and related electrical products.3

By the late 1920s, Braun had grown considerably. The company opened its own factory in 1928, employing around 400 people, and developed a reputation for technical innovation. By 1929, it was producing complete power amplifiers and radio sets.

A notable early innovation was Braun’s combination of a radio and record player in a single unit. This was significant because Braun was already thinking beyond individual components towards integrated consumer products.4

The familiar Braun logo also dates from this early period; the distinctive design featuring the raised, rounded “A” appeared in 1934.5

World War II severely disrupted Braun’s civilian business. The company was forced to largely abandon its consumer-oriented products, and its Frankfurt factories were almost completely destroyed in 1944.6

After the war, Max Braun rebuilt the company. In 1945, Braun restarted operations with approximately 150 employees. The postwar period ultimately became the most important chapter in Braun’s history as the company began moving beyond engineering into a much broader concept of consumer product design.7

A major milestone came in 1950 when Braun introduced the S 50, its first electric shaver. The S 50 used an oscillating cutter mechanism beneath a thin but strong steel foil. This became the foundation of Braun’s characteristic foil shaver technology, which the company continued developing for decades.

At roughly the same time, Braun entered the household appliance market. The Multimix food processor also appeared in 1950, establishing a product category that remains important to Braun today.8

This period established a pattern that would become central to Braun: engineering combined with practical functionality and carefully considered design. Rather than treating appearance as decoration added after engineering, Braun increasingly treated engineering and design as a unified activity.

Dieter Rams

The person most strongly associated with Braun’s design identity is Dieter Rams. Rams joined Braun in 1955, initially as an architect and interior designer. He subsequently became one of the most influential industrial designers of the 20th century and served as Braun’s chief design figure for decades.9

However, Braun’s design transformation was not the work of Rams alone. Braun collaborated with designers connected to the Ulm School of Design, including Hans Gugelot, while other important Braun designers included Fritz Eichler, Otl Aicher, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Gerd Alfred Müller, and Reinhold Weiss.10

Together, they developed an unusually coherent visual language.

Characteristics of classic Braun design

Classic Braun products typically emphasise:

• Simple geometric forms
• Clear controls
• Visual hierarchy
• Minimal decoration
• Neutral colours
• Honest expression of function
• Ergonomics
• High manufacturing quality
• Long-term usability
• Consistency across an entire product system

Braun describes its design approach in terms of quality, functionality, clarity, longevity, and timelessness.11

The phrase most closely associated with Dieter Rams is “less, but better”. It captures the central idea of Braun’s design philosophy: removing unnecessary visual and functional elements rather than continually adding features.

Braun’s approach was influenced by Bauhaus and Ulm design but developed into something distinctly associated with the brand itself. The company’s design principles emphasised simplicity, order, and harmony.

Rams later formulated his Ten Principles for Good Design, which include ideas such as good design being innovative, making a product useful, being aesthetic, helping users understand a product, being unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally conscious, and involving as little design as possible. These principles were strongly informed by Rams’ experience at Braun and became influential far beyond the company. Braun continues to describe good design through the concepts of being simple, useful, and built to last.12

Braun’s historical importance is evident in its product range.

SK 4 radio/phono combination

The SK 4, introduced in the 1950s and designed by Hans Gugelot and Dieter Rams, became one of the defining objects of the Braun design era. Its transparent lid, simple controls, and clean rectangular form contrasted sharply with the heavily decorated wooden radios and record players common at the time, demonstrating that consumer electronics could look modern without appearing complicated.

KM 3 kitchen machine

The KM 3 food processor and kitchen machine became another classic Braun product, with versions produced for more than three decades.13 Its importance extends beyond kitchen equipment, demonstrating how Braun’s design principles could be applied to everyday domestic appliances.

S 50 electric shaver

The 1950 S 50 established Braun’s electric shaver business. Braun subsequently developed the technology through numerous generations of foil shavers.24

Sixtant

The Sixtant of the 1960s became one of the most recognisable products of Braun’s classic design period. Braun describes it as the first mass-produced article of its design era to reach the market.

Calculators, clocks and audio equipment

Braun also produced pocket calculators, alarm clocks, radios, record players, audio equipment, watches, kitchen appliances, hair dryers, and irons. Many of these products became important examples in industrial design history.

Max Braun died suddenly in 1951. His sons Artur Braun and Erwin Braun subsequently took over the company.14

Under the Braun brothers, the company underwent a major transformation. Instead of competing primarily as an electronics manufacturer, Braun increasingly positioned itself as a company producing well-designed products for modern everyday life. This strategic decision meant Braun was not simply selling a radio, shaver, or blender, but promoting a particular idea of modern living where technology should be understandable, useful, and aesthetically calm. This philosophy helped Braun gain international recognition as a design brand during the 1950s and 1960s.

One of Braun’s greatest historical achievements was bringing sophisticated industrial design to ordinary consumer products. Before Braun’s design revolution, many domestic electrical products were designed to resemble furniture or were heavily decorated. Braun moved in the opposite direction, creating products that often looked like precision equipment: functional, geometric, restrained, systematic, and easy to understand.

This helped establish the idea that an everyday appliance could itself be a piece of design. Braun consequently became an important bridge between modernist design and mass-market consumer electronics, helping bring “good design” into the mass market.25

By the 1960s, Braun had grown beyond the scale of a family-run company. In 1967, the American company Gillette acquired a majority shareholding in Braun. Braun continued to operate as a distinct brand while gaining access to Gillette’s international distribution and investment resources.

This was particularly significant for Braun’s grooming business. Electric shavers became increasingly central to Braun’s commercial success, and from the 1970s onwards, shavers became one of the company’s core businesses.26

Braun’s grooming business became one of its most enduring areas. Important technological milestones included:

27

This illustrates an important feature of Braun’s strategy: the company has generally evolved its products through incremental engineering improvements rather than completely abandoning an established product concept.

In 2005, Procter & Gamble acquired Gillette. As a consequence, Braun became part of Procter & Gamble’s global brand portfolio. P&G currently places Braun within its Grooming business alongside brands such as Gillette and Venus.28

When purchasing a modern Braun electric shaver, trimmer, or related grooming product, consumers are generally dealing with Braun as a P&G grooming brand. P&G continues to invest in Braun’s grooming technology. For example, in 2026, P&G introduced Braun NEVO, presenting it as a new generation of electric shaving technology.29

Braun is not operated as one single business across every product category. In 2012, P&G and De’Longhi reached an agreement granting De’Longhi a perpetual licence to use the Braun brand for household small appliances. The agreement covered categories such as kitchen appliances and ironing products but specifically excluded Braun’s male dry shaving and female electric hair removal businesses. P&G retained ownership of the Braun brand.30

De’Longhi subsequently incorporated Braun household products into its own portfolio. De’Longhi states that Braun joined its group in 2013 and currently covers products including food preparation, hand blenders, food processors, mixers, blenders, cooking appliances, coffee makers, kettles, toasters, and irons.31

In simplified terms, Braun grooming falls under P&G, while Braun household appliances are managed by De’Longhi under licence. This distinction is important when discussing the modern Braun brand.

Personal grooming

Braun’s most recognisable modern category is men’s grooming. Its products include electric foil shavers, beard trimmers, hair clippers, body groomers, and styling products. The current range includes the Series 3, Series 5, Series 7, Series 8, and Series 9 families, with Series 9 positioned towards the premium end.15

Female hair removal

Braun also operates in female hair removal products. Its portfolio includes Silk-épil epilators, lady shavers, bikini stylers, and IPL hair removal devices. Braun acquired the French company Silk-épil in 1988, subsequently making epilation an important part of its portfolio.16

Hair care

Braun’s hair care products include hair dryers, straighteners, curlers, brushes, and airstylers. The company’s involvement in hair dryers dates back to the 1960s, and Braun developed notable compact designs such as the PGC 1000 in 1978.17

Household appliances

Under De’Longhi’s Braun business, the brand continues to appear on hand blenders, food processors, hand mixers, jug blenders, choppers, juicers, coffee makers, kettles, toasters, grills, and irons. The MultiQuick hand blender family is particularly important to Braun’s current household business, with De’Longhi describing Braun as a world leader in hand blenders.18

Braun’s design identity can be summarised through several key attributes:

• Simple: Products should be easy to understand rather than visually complicated.
• Functional: Every significant element should have a purpose.
• Human-centred: Products should respond to how people actually use them.
• Durable: Braun historically emphasised long-term usefulness rather than disposable styling.
• Timeless: Products should avoid unnecessary fashion trends.
• Precise: Controls, materials, proportions, and interfaces should communicate technical quality.

Braun currently summarises its design philosophy as “simple, useful and built to last”.19

Braun’s importance extends far beyond its own products. The company’s design language became an important reference point for later designers and technology companies.

Perhaps the most famous example is Apple. Designers and commentators have frequently compared aspects of Apple’s product philosophy with Braun’s design tradition, particularly the emphasis on minimalism, clear interfaces, white or neutral surfaces, geometric forms, reduction of visual clutter, and integration of technology and industrial design. This comparison is notable because Apple’s Jony Ive openly admired Dieter Rams and Braun’s work.

However, it would be inaccurate to say that Apple simply copied Braun. A more precise description is that Braun helped establish a broader modernist industrial design vocabulary that later technology companies adapted to their own products.

Braun represents a different idea of premium design compared to traditional luxury. While luxury products may communicate value through precious materials, ornamentation, branding, decorative details, and exclusivity, Braun historically communicated value through precision, simplicity, engineering, and usability.

This explains why a classic Braun product can appear almost anonymous at first glance. The underlying idea is that a product should demonstrate its quality through how well it works rather than through decoration. This philosophy is a major reason Braun remains important in industrial design history.

Braun generally occupies the premium to upper-mainstream area of consumer appliances. It is not positioned like an ultra-luxury design house. Instead, the brand combines German engineering heritage, practical functionality, modern design, and technological innovation.

The result is a brand identity that sits between traditional German engineering, modernist industrial design, mass-market consumer electronics, and premium personal care. Braun describes its heritage through innovation, design, and quality.20

Several characteristics distinguish Braun from ordinary appliance brands:

1. Design as DNA: For Braun, design has historically been a fundamental part of product development rather than merely a visual styling exercise.
2. German heritage: Braun’s identity remains strongly connected with German engineering and industrial design, even though its businesses are now operated within larger international groups.
3. Consistent visual language: Braun products from different decades often look related because they share common principles of proportion, typography, controls, geometry, and restraint.
4. Long product traditions: Braun did not constantly reinvent categories. Its electric shaver, kitchen appliance, and grooming technologies have often developed through successive generations.
5. Design influence: Few appliance companies have had Braun’s impact on the history of industrial design.

It is important to note that Braun and B. Braun are different companies. The Braun discussed here is the consumer brand founded by Max Braun in Frankfurt in 1921, known for shavers, grooming products, and household appliances.

B. Braun, meanwhile, is a German medical and healthcare company whose history dates to 1839, when Julius Wilhelm Braun acquired a pharmacy in Melsungen. It operates in areas such as infusion therapy, surgery, wound care, and extracorporeal blood treatment.32 They should not be treated as the same corporation.

Braun’s historical legacy encompasses three major areas. In industrial design, Braun helped establish the idea that everyday appliances could be designed according to serious principles of clarity, usability, and aesthetics. In consumer technology, the company developed important products in radios, audio equipment, kitchen appliances, shavers, grooming devices, and other electrical products.

Perhaps Braun’s greatest legacy is philosophical: good products do not need to shout. A well-designed object should be understandable, useful, and durable. That philosophy remains visible in Braun products today, even though the corporate structure behind the brand has changed significantly since Max Braun’s original workshop.

As of 2026, Braun remains a major international brand but is best understood as a brand with different business operators rather than one unified company. P&G operates Braun’s major grooming business, including electric shavers, trimmers, hair removal products, and related personal care products. P&G continues to describe Braun as one of its major grooming brands.21

De’Longhi Group operates the Braun household appliance business under its perpetual brand licence, covering food preparation, cooking, breakfast appliances, and ironing.22 The brand itself continues to emphasise the principles established during its classic design era: functionality, simplicity, quality, and longevity.23

1. About Us | Braun US
2. The History of Braun’s Design & Innovation | Braun US
3. BRAUN History｜BRAUN Healthcare | Asia Pacific
4. Microsoft Word – DeLonghi_press release B closing – v7 – 30082012 – ENG
5. 100 years of Braun. – Stories | Braun Audio
6. BraunPrize 2018 : DESIGN FOR WHAT MATTERS – About
7. Braun Product | Braun
8. About Braun | Braun UK
9. Braun NEVO: A Masterclass in Design, Durability, and a Perfect Shave | P&G
10. Braun | De’ Longhi Group – Corporate Website
11. Electric Shavers for Men | Braun
12. MegaBrand | Braun
13. B. Braun: Company History – B. Braun
14. ABOUT US & HISORY | BRAUN（ブラウン）公式サイト
15. Hair Removal, Grooming & Hair Care Products | Braun SG
16. Design & Craftsmanship – All about Braun Designers, Products and History | Braun SG
17. Braun Electric Shavers, Trimmers, Epilators, and IPLs
18. Welcome to Braun
19. Braun Electric Shavers, Trimmers, Epilators, and IPLs
20. Welcome to Braun
21. Electric Grooming Products for Men and Women | Braun US
22. Braun designers | Braun
23. About BRAUN｜BRAUN Healthcare | Asia Pacific
24. Electric Shavers – Braun Official Shop
25. About Braun | Braun HK
26. Terms and Conditions | Braun SG
27. Braun
28. About Braun | Braun PT
29. Braun GmbH | Science Museum Group Collection
30. 해외 제품에 대한 서비스 및 보증에 관한 주의 사항 | De’Longhi KR
31. De’Longhi | Partner Links | De’Longhi AU
32. B. Braun: leading medical tech for over 180 years – B. Braun