190 Designed Quotes

Following is our list of designed quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about inspiring graphic design.

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Famous Designed Quotes

Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner. — Massimo Vignelli

Graphic design is the fiction that anticipates the fact. — Michael Bierut

Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas. — Chip Kidd

I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable. — Massimo Vignelli

Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does. - David Carson

Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does. — David Carson

Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take. — Chip Kidd

Design is thinking made visual. — Saul Bass

Good design is good business. — Thomas J. Watson

The challenge is for the graphic designer to turn data into information and information into messages of meaning. — Katherine McCoy

Designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organising and manipulating of words and pictures. — Jeffrey Veen

Design is the key to everything. If you learn how to design you can do anything. — Doug Cranmer

Design is everything. Everything! - Paul Rand

Design is everything. Everything! — Paul Rand

The fusion of art and technology that we call interface design. — Steven Johnson

Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer's job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting. — Paul Rand

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 Adigard

Short Designed Quotes

  • Leave this world a little better than you found it. — Robert Baden-Powell
  • He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist — Francis of Assisi
  • Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love. — Louis Kahn
  • Chandeliers are marvels of drop-dead showiness, the jewellery of architecture. — Peter York
  • Make it like a sunflower. — Steve Jobs
  • You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people. — Dieter Rams
  • It's through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good. — Paula Scher
  • There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence. — Massimo Vignelli
  • Helvetica is the jeans, and Univers the dinner jacket. Helvetica is here to stay. — Adrian Frutiger
  • Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries. — Neville Brody

Designed Image Quotes

White space is to be regarded as an active element, not a passive background. - Jan Tschichold quote

White space is to be regarded as an active element, not a passive background. — Jan Tschichold

Its focus wasn't on the written word but how the word was written. - Neville Brody quote

Its focus wasn't on the written word but how the word was written. — Neville Brody

The stiletto is a feminine weapon that men just don't have. - Christian Louboutin quote

The stiletto is a feminine weapon that men just don't have. — Christian Louboutin

Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not. - Massimo Vignelli quote

Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not. — Massimo Vignelli

Great design is serious, not solemn - Paula Scher quote

Great design is serious, not solemn — Paula Scher

In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous. - Elsa Schiaparelli quote

In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous. — Elsa Schiaparelli

Talk is cheap. Show me the code. - Linus Torvalds quote

Talk is cheap. Show me the code. — Linus Torvalds

I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. - Kevin Costner quote

I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. — Kevin Costner

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people. - Victor Papanek quote

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people. — Victor Papanek

Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women. - Elsa Schiaparelli quote

Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women. — Elsa Schiaparelli

A good shoe is one that doesn't dress you but undresses you. - Christian Louboutin quote

A good shoe is one that doesn't dress you but undresses you. — Christian Louboutin

I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win. - Ayrton Senna quote

I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win. — Ayrton Senna

My passion for music has always inspired my designs. - Tommy Hilfiger quote

My passion for music has always inspired my designs. — Tommy Hilfiger

I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world. - Bette Midler quote

I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world. — Bette Midler

You have two choices: You can make a living, or you can design a life. - Jim Rohn quote

You have two choices: You can make a living, or you can design a life. — Jim Rohn

Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born. - Karl Lagerfeld quote

Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born. — Karl Lagerfeld

My favorite project is always the next one. - Michael Graves quote

My favorite project is always the next one. — Michael Graves

Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking. - Milton Glaser quote

Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking. — Milton Glaser

Copy and paste is a design error. - David Parnas quote

Copy and paste is a design error. — David Parnas

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it. - Omar N. Bradley quote

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it. — Omar N. Bradley

Designed quote Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.
Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.

Creative Graphic Design Quotes

You can do a good ad without good typography, but you can't do a great ad without good typography. — Herb Lubalin

If you can design one thing, you can design everything. - Massimo Vignelli

If you can design one thing, you can design everything. — Massimo Vignelli

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

Designed quote Good design is obvious, great design is transparent.
Good design is obvious, great design is transparent.

A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense. — Bruno Munari

Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance. — Jon Franklin

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. — James Whistler

Designed quote Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak
Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. — Jim Jarmusch

Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent — Jim Jarmusch

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. — Howard Aiken

If our field is "to advance", we must - without displacing creativity and aesthetics - make sure our terminology is clear. — Jef Raskin

Inspiring Graphic Design Quotes

Creating is about sharing ideas, sharing aesthetics, sharing what you believe in with other people. — Shepard Fairey

I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That's my intent. — Saul Bass

What's the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it? — Wolfgang Weingart

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

The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read; their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read. — Zuzana Licko

You can't do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously. — Wim Crouwel

You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt... or in front of a piece of graphic design. — Stefan Sagmeister

Designed quote If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan.
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan.

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

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

They must find it difficult ... those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. — Gerald Massey

Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended. — Raymond Loewy

Graphic Design Inspiration Quotes

Design is the application of intent - the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident. — Robert L. Peters

It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. — Jonathan Ive

Don't worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop. — Jeffrey Zeldman

Designed quote Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because the idea wasn't theirs.
Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because the idea wasn't theirs.

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. — Robert L. Peters

If design isn't profitable, then it's art. — Henrik Fisker

Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous. — Ralph Caplan

Designed quote Good design is as little design as possible.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Inspiration the seed. Design but the flower. — Michael Langham

Do work you love and are passionate about, look outside of the world of graphic design for inspiration. — Jessica Walsh

Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order — Victor Papanek

To create a memorable design you need to start with a thought that's worth remembering. — Thomas Manss

Graphic Art Quotes

The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design. — Massimo Vignelli

Perfect typography is certainly the most elusive of all arts. Sculpture in stone alone comes near it in obstinacy. — Jan Tschichold

The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive. — Vladimir Lenin

Designed quote Design is where science and art break even.
Design is where science and art break even.

The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything which is already finished, already made, already existing in the world - it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of people. — El Lissitzky

The observer must learn to look at the picture as a graphic representation of a mood and not as a representation of objects. — Wassily Kandinsky

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

Designed quote Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.
Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.

The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail. — John Wesley Powell

Art is the only place you can do what you like. That's freedom. — Paula Rego

Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer therefore realizes that, for a new font to be successful, it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty. — Stanley Morison

Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future. — Paola Antonelli

Graphic Artist Quotes

Doing graphic novels is cool! It's fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out. — Anthony Bourdain

A designer can mull over complicated designs for months. Then suddenly the simple, elegant, beautiful solution occurs to him. When it happens to you, it feels as if God is talking! And maybe He is. — Leo Frankowski

The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong. — Marty Neumeier

Designed quote Design is thinking made visual.
Design is thinking made visual.

There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools. — Eric Gill

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

Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual. — Edward Tufte

Designed quote Luck is the residue of design.
Luck is the residue of design.

I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans. — Jerry Pinkney

I have to perfect my beard every morning and it takes a long time. I think a lot of musicians are into graphic design and art. I decided to be a little bit of an artist on my face. — Craig David

Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. — Jim Jarmusch

Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. — Steve Jobs

Graphic Quotes

An electrician isn't an opinion former, but a graphic designer is. My argument is that all graphic designers hold high levels of responsibility in society. We take invisible ideas and make them tangible. That's our job. — Neville Brody

Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of funtional design. In addition to being more logical, asymmetry has the advantage that its complete appearance is far more optically effective than symmetry. — Jan Tschichold

Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts. — El Lissitzky

For me, typography is a triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing technique. — Wolfgang Weingart

I like to step into areas where I am afraid. Fear is a sign that I am going in the right direction. — April Greiman

We`re not here for a long time, we`re here for a good time / Reach For the Sky, 'cause tomorrow may never come. — Mike Ness

No one loves authenticity like a graphic designer. And no one is quite as good at simulating it. — Michael Bierut

For after all, a poster does more than simply supply information on the goods it advertises; it also reveals a society’s state of mind — Armin Hofmann

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused. - Darren Aronofsky

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused. — Darren Aronofsky

Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women. — Alexander McQueen

Web Design Quotes

The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect - to help people work together - and not as a technical toy. — Tim Berners-Lee

Websites promote you 24/7: No employee will do that. — Paul Cookson

Our weavings in the cosmic web are not self-contained. Rather, they are part of the design of our collective humanity. — Lisa Hunt

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

Good Web design is about the character of the content, not the character of the designer. — Jeffrey Zeldman

I love the fact that I work with everything that has to do with the brand, the product, the environment, the online, the architecture, the web design, because I am somebody that loves making things, making experiences, creating things that people love to engage with. — Christopher Bailey

The usability tests we have conducted during the last year have shown an increasing reluctance among users to accept innovations in Web design. The prevailing attitude is to request designs that are similar to everything else people see on the Web. — Jakob Nielsen

Great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine. — Paul Cookson

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity. — Jeffrey Zeldman

Day by day, the number of devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site grows. Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift in how we'll build websites for the decade to come. — Jeffrey Veen

Design And Art Quotes

The Jiu Jitsu I created was designed to give the weak ones a chance to face the heavy and strong. — Helio Gracie

For me fashion is an expression of art that is very closely related both to me and to my body. I see it as an expression of identity combined with desire, moods and a cultural setting. — Iris van Herpen

Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The business and design of the Royal Society is: To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanic practices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments-(not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls, Politicks, Grammar, Rhetoric or Logick). — Robert Hooke

Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own earth — Frank Lloyd Wright

I never design a building before I've seen the site and met the people who will be using it. — Frank Lloyd Wright

The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing. — Bruno Munari

Having no purpose is the function of art, so somebody else can look at it and ask a question. Design is different - you're supposed to understand what's going on. You can be delighted by it, intrigued by it, but you're supposed to know it's a hot dog stand. — Paula Scher

When I see beautiful clothes, I want to keep them, preserve them... Clothes, like architecture and art, reflect an era. — Azzedine Alaia

Ninety percent of games lose money; 10 percent make a lot of money. And there's a consistency around the competitive advantages you create, so if you can actually learn how to do the art, the design, and the programming, you would be consistently very profitable. — Gabe Newell

Interior Design Quotes

You create your own decoration. You choose your color, you choose your mood. ... If you are depressed, you put some bright yellow and suddenly you are happy. — Philippe Starck

Beige is atmosphere. It's bisque, it's ivory, it's cream, it's stone, it's toast, it's cappuccino. It;s well, it's magic. — Albert Hadley

I am going to design, in a great hurry, and I believe to build a station after my own fancy; that is, with engineering roofs, etc. etc. It is at Paddington, in cutting, and admitting of no exterior, all interior and all roofed in. — Isambard Kingdom Brunel

I am going to make everything around me beautiful - that will be my life. — Elsie De Wolfe

One sits more comfortably on a colour that one likes. — Verner Panton

It wasn't that I had any great dream of being an architect. I just wanted to make things. Whether it was furniture, painting, interior design, or architecture. I just wanted to create something. — Tadao Ando

I'm an artist, a designer, a craftsman, interior designer, half-architect. There's no one name that fits me very well. — Dale Chihuly

The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination and make their surroundings more exciting. — Verner Panton

Luxury starts where functionality ends and where the true value is personal and so has no price or reason. — Marcel Wanders

I make no special difference between architecture and design, they are two different stages of invention. — Ettore Sottsass

Graphic Novels Quotes

I like the idea of making big budget films with a heart. I like graphic novels more than comic books. — Matthew Vaughn

When I put together a graphic novel, I don't think about literary prose. I think about storytelling. — Ted Rall

If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel. — Ted Rall

I don't think anyone has written a great graphic novel. — Ted Rall

Oh, I’m nerdy about science fiction and fantasy and graphic novels and reading, and I’m nerdy about board games. My favorite board game is a board game I’m working on right now. It’s a game of Napoleonic era naval warfare, and it’s going to be fun. — Billy Campbell

The 'Barnaby' books were always intended to be graphic novels. — Janet Evanovich

People unacquainted with graphic novels, including journalists, tend to think of Watchmen as a book by Alan Moore that happens to have some illustrations. And that does a disservice to the entire form. — Dave Gibbons

Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever. — Jon Scieszka

As you know, transforming such a big book [The Gunslinger Born] into graphic novel format is really a process of translation. — Robin Furth

People are so afraid to say the word "comic". It makes you think of a grown man with pimples, a ponytail and a big belly. Change it to "graphic novel" and that disappears. — Marjane Satrapi

Architectural Design Quotes

A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture, designed to enhance the proportions of the female body. — Christian Dior

One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again. — Renzo Piano

I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do. - Frank Gehry

I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do. — Frank Gehry

The Sun does not realise how wonderful it is until after a room is made. - Louis Kahn

The Sun does not realise how wonderful it is until after a room is made. — Louis Kahn

Nothing in this world is more simple and more cheap than making cities that provide better for people. — Jan Gehl

The room is there for the human being - not the human being for the room. - El Lissitzky

The room is there for the human being - not the human being for the room. — El Lissitzky

I like ruins because what remains is not the total design, but the clarity of thought, the naked structure, the spirit of the thing. — Tadao Ando

A modern building should derive its architectural significance solely from the vigour and consequence of its own organic proportions. It must be true to itself, logically transparent, and virginal of lies or trivialities. — Walter Gropius

If you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. — Frank Lloyd Wright

To create, one must first question everything. - Eileen Gray

To create, one must first question everything. — Eileen Gray

Creativity And Design Quotes

The letters don't get their true delight, when done in haste & discomfort, nor merely done with diligence & pain, but first when they are created with love and passion. — Giambattista Bodoni

Interesting things happen when the creative impulse is cultivated with curiosity, freedom and intensity. — Saul Bass

Creative people have to believe in the value of their work. If you don’t have any belief then you can’t give anything—designing is an act of giving, and a belief in the value of the work fuels the desire to express something. It’s important to know what your values are and to take care of them. — Peter Saville

Failure is built into creativity... the creative act involves this element of 'newness' and 'experimentalism,' then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure. — Saul Bass

My work is to help innovators and designers understand that the success of their creativity is in large part based on the success of their products. — Bernard Arnault

Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits. — Bernard Arnault

The designer's role in the development, application and protection of the trademark may be described as pre-creative, creative and post-creative. — Lester Beall

We live in a society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy. This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult. A...student (has) massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engendered by some 16 years of mis-education. — Victor Papanek

An enterprise's most vital assets lie in its design and other creative capabilities. — Lee Kun-hee

Great design is a multi-layered relationship between human life and its environment. — Naoto Fukasawa

People Writing About Designed

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Read quotes by Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli
quotes on love, art and world

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Read quotes by Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd
quotes on life, education and technology

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Read quotes by Paul Rand

Paul Rand
quotes on logos, design

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Read quotes by Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut
quotes on art, culture and life

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Read quotes by David Carson

David Carson
quotes on education, leadership and art

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Read quotes by Saul Bass

Saul Bass
quotes on music, leadership and art

19 1316

More Designed Quotes

The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don't wear her. - Mary Quant quote

The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don't wear her. — Mary Quant

There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful. - William Morris quote

There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful. — William Morris

To wear dreams on one's feet is to begin to give reality to one's dreams. - Roger Vivier quote

To wear dreams on one's feet is to begin to give reality to one's dreams. — Roger Vivier

A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed. - Coco Chanel quote

A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed. — Coco Chanel

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable. — Louis Kahn

Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize. — Antonin Scalia

The best way to accomplish serious design ... is to be totally and completely unqualified for the job. — Paula Scher

To live our lives and miss that great purpose we were designed to accomplish is truly a sin. It is inconceivable that we could be bored in a world with so much wrong to tackle, so much ignorance to reach and so much misery we could alleviate — William Wilberforce

From all these experiences the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader. — Adrian Frutiger

A few well-designed movements, properly performed in a balanced sequence, are worth hours of doing sloppy calisthenics or forced contortion. — Joseph Pilates

Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owner's manual your creator gave you and destroying your design. — Oprah Winfrey

The material of typography is the black, and it is the designer’s task with the help of this black to capture space, to create harmonious whites inside the letters as well as between them. — Adrian Frutiger

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