Inspirational Design Quotes

If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

Red Adair

Jobs, Thinking, Design

78 Copy quote
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Inspiring, Success, Writing

27 Copy quote
Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.

Paul Rand

Inspirational, Ideas, Goal

50 Copy quote
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

Edwin Land

Inspiring, Courage, Failure

"A Genius and His Magic Camera". Life Magazine, October 27, 1972.

49 Copy quote

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Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Spiritual, Design, Misunderstood

339 Copy quote
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Steve Jobs

Inspiring, Business, Work

Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.37, Prabhat Prakashan

60 Copy quote

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Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

Steve Jobs

Inspirational, Life, Motivational

84 Copy quote
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Hans Hofmann

Inspirational, Business, Mean

1967 Search for the Real.

89 Copy quote

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Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.

Paul Rand

Art, Simple, Design

86 Copy quote
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Mark Twain

Life, Inspiring, Meaningful

Mark Twain (1889). “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, p.422, Createspace Independent Pub

79 Copy quote

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Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores.

Chip Kidd

Falling In Love, Ideas, Design

Chip Kidd (2008). “The Cheese Monkeys”, p.106, Simon and Schuster

28 Copy quote

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The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.

Massimo Vignelli

Creativity, Fighting, Design

77 Copy quote
Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.

Pierre Bonnard

Death, Color, Design

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Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

Love, Inspirational, Life

Scott Adams (2007). “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey G ods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More”, p.438, Penguin

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A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams

Inspirational, Funny, Fake People

Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.690, Pan Macmillan

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The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.

Paul Rand

Technology, Design, Reassuring

Paul Rand (2017). “Design, Form, and Chaos”, p.30, Yale University Press

34 Copy quote

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Albert Einstein

Inspirational, Funny, Witty

145 Copy quote
Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.

Chip Kidd

Falling In Love, Jobs, Technology

76 Copy quote
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.

Steve Jobs

Mean, Creativity, Thinking

Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.37, Prabhat Prakashan

21 Copy quote

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The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.

Nolan Bushnell

Motivational, Death, Inspiration

43 Copy quote
But I find that for myself, without exception, the more I deal with the work as something that is my own, as something that is personal, the more successful it is.

Marian Bantjes

Successful, Design, Deals

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If you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients.

Michael Bierut

Design, Clients, Good Work

75 Copy quote
I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That's my intent.

Saul Bass

Beautiful, Ugly Things, Design

120 Copy quote
Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.

Rachel Zoe

Inspiring, Fashion, Attitude

35 Copy quote
To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.

Milton Glaser

Mean, Design, Masters

43 Copy quote