Top 100 Design Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best design quotes ever written, picked out of the full design archive on QuoteForever. You will find Donald A. Norman, Dieter Rams, Christian Louboutin and B. J. Fogg among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

The same architect who designed the Seattle fair's futuristic Science Center, with its lacy Gothic arches and spires, Minoru Yamasaki, was hired to design the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Seattle had promised fairgoers a glimpse of the world that would exist in 2001. That year eventually unfolded as something less than the dream we'd imagined.

2

When there's an opportunity, some people pass it by. I've been lucky enough to recognise opportunities and every day, in my business, there's an opportunity somewhere - to buy, expand, design.

3

I think the whole thing that Jamie [Hyneman] and I have in working together is that we are constantly simplifying each other's designs, and we both appreciate that the quickest and the dirtiest solution is usually the most elegant, the least expensive, and the fastest.

4

Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.

5

The only real reason that I'd have for working for Hollywood is the fantastic amounts of money involved, and that isn't enough of an incentive to really give up the degree of control that I have over my work at the moment with comics. I suppose that's probably why I don't have any designs on being a screenwriter.

6

I need to be performing. I need to be acting. I need to be designing a condo and ripping down walls and buying new plates and looking at fashion magazines. There always has to be some movement in the artistic department for me to not get really, really low.

7

Most of the designers are eco-friendly, even by default, through their use of up-cycled materials and organic fabrics, and by producing in small quantities. Ultimately, the design has to be great - no one will buy it if it looks like a hemp sack!

8

Minimalism in interior design has become a caricature. Everywhere you find shops or hotels with an ambience that makes you feel like you are in a refrigerator.

9

Gorillas are still wild creatures. That's made very clear when you observe them in nature. They charge and perform other displays that are terrifying by design. But they don't attack unless they feel threatened.

10

The architect, Peter Arens who is the monstrous carbuncle architect, not merely did his design which had won a public competition never get built but his practice suffered financially for some years.

11

Design your life to minimize reliance on willpower.

12

Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people.

13

By understanding evolution as the expression of universal intelligence, now becoming conscious of itself within us, and as us, we overcome the dichotomy between current evolutionists who see no design in evolution, and creationists who often propose and anthropomorphic God as creator.

14

Set a page in Fournier against another in Caslon and another in Plantin and it is as if you heard three different people delivering the same discourse - each with impeccable pronunciation and clarity, yet each through the medium of a different personality.

15

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

16

I haven't done any building designs since the Loaf House.

17

It's hard to understand how you arrive at a design. It's far too complicated to get any overall picture of.

18

Many churches of all persuasions are hiring research agencies to poll neighborhoods, asking what kind of church they prefer. Then the local churches design themselves to fit the desires of the people. True faith in God that demands selflessness is being replaced by trendy religion that serves the selfish.

19

I'd dropped out of college to start design thing.

20

I started designing book jackets, which was great because I was good at it. And then from there I decided to become a freelance graphic designer and I needed to expand beyond book jackets, so I taught myself web design, and then in 1999 some friends of mine decided to start a company called Xanga.com, which was a very early kind of social network slash blogging community.

21

Nature doesn't see things through the prism of good or bad. It rewards efficiency. That is the simplicity of evolution, matching design to environment.

22

Forget all the rules you ever learned about graphic design.

23

I'm really not for famous people who design a line for a company, when you know it's not really them creating it but a team of designers, especially when there are so many talented people who've taken the time to go and study fashion.

24

Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Luck is the residue of design.

25

Even though designing your own show, that's great, I am nothing without the support around me.

26

One of the criticisms we get is, Does the world need more plastic crap? But you have to look beyond the plastic crap, to the design, to the experience, to the empowering nature of the MakerBot and the community.

27

Java development without a little heresy would be a dull place, and a dangerous one.

28

Over the past 20 years, I have noticed that the most flexible, dynamic, inquisitive minds among my students have been industrial design majors. Industrial designers are bracingly free of ideology and cant. The industrial designer is trained to be a clear-eyed observer of the commercial world - which, like it or not, is modern reality.

29

I approve designs not because I think I am more gifted or somebody who can see ahead three or four years from now, but just to make sure that the design is a logical, rational decision, taken after analyzing pros and cons.

30

There has been a most Providential Guidance which the want of prudence, vigilance, or judgement has not impeded, and it is here that we can most clearly see the designs of God.

31

I want to do television, film, music and designing. I want to do it all!

32

The U.S. government knew that China wanted to acquire sensitive U.S. technology, and instead of implementing a policy to prevent them from acquiring the information, the government all but gave them an invitation to take our equipment and designs.

33

How is the birdhouse coming along, Charlie Brown?" "Well, I'm a lousy carpenter, I can't nail straight, I can't saw straight and I always split the wood... I'm nervous, I lack confidence, I'm stupid, I have poor taste and absolutely no sense of design... So, all things considered, it's coming along okay!

34

Humans are incapable of securely storing high-quality cryptographic keys, and they have unacceptable speed and accuracy when performing cryptographic operations. (They are also large, expensive to maintain, difficult to manage, and they pollute the environment. It is astonishing that these devices continue to be manufactured and deployed. But they are sufficiently pervasive that we must design our protocols around their limitations.)

35

Take the time and do some small thing that will be noticed and remembered. Choose your objects carefully, and buy only what you love.

36

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

37

I'm a designer, and I think if you work in fashion, you have to give people fantasy.

38

I have no problem with the idea of comfort, but it is not an important thing aesthetically. If you look at a shoe and immediately say it looks very comfortable, in terms of design, it is not going to excite me. Of course, I am not putting nails in my shoes to ensure everybody is in pain, but a heel is not a pair of slippers and never will be.

39

Designing is always on the mind of a designer, and as I was saying it's a sort of digestive process, so I usually keep it to myself unless I'm collaborating with someone because explaining all the things that are going on in your head can be quite exhausting, especially in the early stages of a project.

40

The thing is, if you're a designer, then you want to constantly push yourself and your designs. When we make a new collection, we're changing shapes, we're changing patterns. We get a dress on a model, and it's our first time seeing what the dress really looks like on a woman's body.

41

If I weren't a theatre designer, I wouldn't be any other kind of designer. Design is interesting to me as it relates to narrative: the design has to support the narrative. Storytelling is the most important thing.

42

Let's forget about themes and mood boards. Let's start from a different point of view. You have to leave for two months all of a sudden. What would you put in your suitcase? What are the twenty essential pieces that you will need and how would you design it to be cool, and you'll want to wear it?

43

There either is a god or there is not; there is a 'design' or not.

44

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

45

Saudi Arabia will have to decide its own path, and I don't know if it will decide a path like any other nation in the region or if it will design something that is unique to Saudi Arabia.

46

The greatest power God has given to His sons cannot be exercised without the companionship of one of his daughters, because only to his daughters has God given the power to be a creator of bodies so that God’s design and the great plan might meet fruition.

47

The thing that's important is not something called design; it's how you live, its life itself. Design really comes from that. You cannot separate what you do from your life.

48

Studying design has made me a much, much more astute observer of this aspect of business. And I'm working mightily to improve my empathic skills. I've dramatically improved my ability to read facial expressions - and I'm trying to be a better, more attentive listener.

49

And then, build a bustling wonderful city of the 21st century, with a restoration of a spectacular skyline, which Manhattan, of course, needs. So, that is really the design as a whole.

50

I studied literature design and fashion design.

51

Design is more important than technology in most consumer applications.

52

Simple and intuitive design is what inspires and drives me.

53

By divine design, men and women are intended to progress together toward perfection and a fulness of glory. Because of their distinctive temperaments and capacities, males and females each bring to a marriage relationship unique perspectives and experiences.

54

I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.

55

I do very little industrial design. I'm asked a lot, but I certainly don't see myself as an industrial designer.

56

Design has a powerful impact on the viewer. It has authority, and data also has the same air of authenticity and detail. It can be hard to argue with a graph, and it's hard to argue with data. So to combine data with a strong visual impact creates a powerful message.

57

I started moving into online work, and that exposed me to design and the impact it has on the flow, shape, and narrative of the story. This got me thinking that maybe this is a way of doing journalism, a way of telling stories and revealing patterns.

58

We opened a design center in the South of England last year as part of our strategy for being close to our customers and developing innovative products for exciting new markets.

59

Make a technical contribution; innovate, don't emulate.

60

The design of a restaurant should embrace the identity of the chef, the nature of the cuisine, and the context of the restaurant itself.

61

So I went for engineering, specifically product design, which I enjoyed.

62

Simon Collinson, of digital publisher Canelo and über-cool Aussie mag The Lifted Brow, is our digital producer; Sarah Shin, Verso's comms director, is helping us out with press publicity; Soraya Gilanni, who mainly does production and set design for films and commercials, is our art director.

63

There are no real coincidences in life for those with faith strong enough to recognize coincidences for what they really are: intricate pieces of the providential design God created for each of our lives.

64

Privacy, after all, was the most relative of privileges. It was granted us by society under ungenerous conditions, the most fundamental of them that whether for pain or profit, by design or accident, we not call public attention to ourselves.

65

A challenging economy is always good for design. It unites necessity and functionality. You are forced to be creative with poor materials.

66

Good design is long-lasting! It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated.

67

Design is a thinking process that starts in the head and with sketches. Thinking cannot be done by a computer.

68

Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

69

Good design makes a product understandable.

70

I think there is an elegance and balance to design in nature that is the starting point for creating something of beauty. But I would hate the idea of being defined by anything other than my own aesthetic.

71

Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly. The principals [of design] come from understanding of people. They remain true forever.

72

The world is complex, and so too must be the activities that we perform. But that doesn't mean that we must live in continual frustration. No. The whole point of human-centered design is to tame complexity, to turn what would appear to be a complicated tool into one that fits the task, that is understandable, usable, enjoyable.

73

Attractive things work better.

74

Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone

75

Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.

76

It is the duty of machines and those who design them to understand people. It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines.

77

We must accept human error as inevitable - and design around that fact.

78

The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.

79

A business woman needs a successful mix of design and practicality. I look for that special piece that sets the watch apart from the norm. I want to have something unique that differentiates itself with style and glamour.

80

The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.

81

I believe in doing the thing you feel is right. If it looks right, it is right.

82

In sound design programs now, you can literally sculpt the sound on visual graphs. Sometimes the visual programs are even more interesting than the music that's making them

83

I'm opinionated. I always stick to my design plan. I don't waver.

84

Biological engineering is not necessarily understanding systems but rather, I want to be able to design and build biological systems to perform particular applications.

85

When I'm designing I try to think about what I like to see on other people.

86

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.

87

First understand infinity then you will understand God and how evolution is intelligent design.

88

Holland is very good at avant garde, probably due to the Dutch character. Good at design. Experimentation sometimes works here very well.

89

My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design.

90

A designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes.

91

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

92

There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs.

93

There are many possible approaches to Australian garden design, and they all reflect the designer's individual response to gardens. For my part, I love all things most gardeners abhor... I like the whole thing to be as wild as possible, so that you have to fight your way through in places.

94

You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future

95

Hunts Point Revival's reuse of the existing structure as part of the new development was conceptually bold and challenging. Overall, the project contained a good blend of creative sustainable design elements. The solar room for heating and ventilation was particularly creative and convincing.

96

Design cannot rescue failed content.

97

Clutter is not a property of information. Clutter is a failure of design.

98

Become a creative thinking detective! Ask probing questions. There is no such thing as a wasted question.

99

You have to write scenes and design scenes that are scary and horrific, but that are also watchable. I didn't want people to just feel like they got punched in the stomach.

100

Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is accustomed to.

More Design quotes

This is the short list. The full design quotes collection holds every quote on the subject in the archive, and the picture quotes are ready to share as images.

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