Design Quotes

If I had more time I would've written a shorter letter.

Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.

Simple is hard. Easy is harder. Invisible is hardest.

To design something really well you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to thoroughly understand something – chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that. Creativity is just connecting things.

Any time one or more things are consciously put together in a way that they can accomplish something better than they could have accomplished individually, this is an act of design

If you’re going to do this kind of life pursuit, you should solve something other than stylistic issues.

Aim to displease everyone equally [...] Document Religiously [...] Perfection is unachievable, but try anyway

I never read, I just look at pictures.

Service design is about imagining and developing multi-channel experiences that have a positive social, environmental or commercial return.

Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.

It’s not about consistency, it’s about creating stories that make sense.

I never had to ask customers what they wanted. If it’s something truly revolutionary, they won’t be able to help you.

In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Women should look like women. A piece of cardboard has no sexuality.

The core value was always the act of making things, and the transformation of an idea that you hold in your mind that becomes real or material. That to me still is the glory of any creative activity.

Does good design lead to increased sales-profit? The answer is clearly, yes.

Does good design lead to increased sales-profit? The answer is clearly, yes.

I am troubled by the devaluing of the word 'design’. I find myself now being somewhat embarrassed to be called a designer. In fact I prefer the German term, Gestalt-Ingenieur. Apple and Vitsoe are relatively lone voices treating the discipline of design seriously in all corners of their businesses. They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value.

If you do it right, it will last forever

No amount of creativity or design can fix a bad strategy.