42 Great Quotes On Design
“Design has to work, art does not.”
This week we are proud to be launching our course on Human Centered Design.
Made in partnership with the world-famous Parsons School of Design, it explains an easy design process you can follow to create almost anything.
It features a wide range of industry experts, case studies and a comprehensive set of resources.
In celebration of this course launch, we’ve gathered together forty-two of our favourite quotes on design.
We hope you find them inspiring and motivate you to discover more about this fascinating world that’s part art and part science.
1. “To be a great designer, you need to look a little deeper into how people think and act.” - Paul Boag
2. “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” - Joe Sparano
3. “Design is thinking made visual.” - Saul Bass
4. “The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host, anticipating the needs of his guests." - Charles Eames
5. “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” - Brian Reed
6. “Attention to detail can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.” - Marco Arment
7. “Design adds value faster than it adds costs." - Joel Spolsky
8. “Practice safe design: Use a concept.” - Petrula Vontrikis
9. “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-Exupéry
10. “Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.” - Ralph Caplan
11. Design is the body language of your marketing. Don’t slouch.” - Mark King
12. “The alternative to good design is always bad design. There is no such thing as no design.” - Adam Judge
13. “Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking“. - Milton Glaser
14. “We spend a lot of time designing the bridge, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.” - Dr Prabhjot Singh
15. “I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” - Lindon Leader
16. “Design is easy. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead.” - Marty Neumeier
17. “The design process is about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers.” - Jonathan Ive
18. “If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” - Henrik Fisker
19. “And when a design is completed, it should seem natural and obvious. It should look like it is always been this way. And it should last.” - Roger Black
20. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000 meetings.” - Tom & David Kelley
21. “Good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible.” - Donald A. Norman
22. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs
23. “Design is not a thing you do. It’s a way of life.” - Alan Fletcher
24. “Bad design shouts at you. Good design is the silent seller.” - Shane Meendering
25. “Every great design begins with an even better story.” - Lorinda Mamo
26. “The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.” - Massimo Vignelli
27. “Design is in everything we make, but it’s also between those things. It’s a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda, and philosophy.” - Erik Edigard
28. “There are three responses to a piece of design - yes, no and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” - Milton Glaser
29. “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” - Frank Chimero
30. “Good design makes a product understandable.” - Dieter Rams
31. “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” - Dr Ralf Speth
32. “ Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.” - Leisa Reichelt
33. “Good design keep the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended.” - Raymond Loewy
34. “We designers don’t get hired to make pretty things or win design awards. We get hired to solve business problems.” - James Bradley
35. “Design is as much a matter of finding problems as it is solving them.” - Bryan Lawson
36. “Design is where science and art break even.” - Robin Mathew
37. “Just because something looks good doesn’t mean it’s useful. And just because something is useful does not make it beautiful.” - Joshua Brewer
38. “Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.” - Paola Antonelli
39. “No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended.” - Adrian Forty
40. “Design is a solution to a problem; art is a question to a problem.” - John Maeda
41. “If you find an element of your interface requires instructions, then you need to redesign it.” - Dan Rubin
42. “Design is like a mom, nobody notices when she’s around, but everybody misses her when she’s not.” - Santiago Borray
Did you know we offer a range of design-related courses?
Check out our popular courses Design The Life You Love, UX Design, Service Design and our latest Human Centered Design.
