Can I Get a Quote on that Design?
Image by Curt via Flickr
There’s something in us as creatives, I think, that just love quotes. Simple, to the point, quotes help synthesize our ideas into little tidbits of information. We like quotes because the best are shortest… and we wished we thought of them first. Sometimes, writing a long essay on a subject isn’t needed, especially if you can speak your thoughts like a lot of the following quotes an old professor came across on Design Was Here.
I decided to cherry pick my absolute favorite quotes from this (most of which I hadn’t heard before) and present them to you. Also, added work where I could find it about the designers I chose quotes from. Enjoy.
People ignore design that ignores people.
Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.
Good design goes to heaven; bad design goes everywhere.
Design should never say, “Look at me.” It should always say, “Look at this.”
— David Craib
Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.
Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist.
It’s art if can’t be explained.
It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation.
It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.
I find modernist design boring, but it so [sic] much faster!
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
— Douglas Adams
If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.
Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.
It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
…designers can make life more bearable by producing stuff that touches its audience rather than fucks them in the head.