As a graphic designer who has a consistent flux of clients, you want all the inspiration possible to fuel your creative juices. Sometimes that is a bit difficult. What I’ve seen working well are graphic design quotes that you can put as wallpapers.
You can also write them down and check them from time to time. These graphic design quotes sum up ideas that have been brought up by famous designers.
Write them down, put them on your phone or computer background, whatever you prefer.
Stay inspired!
You might notice that not all of them refer to graphic design directly, but will surely help motivate you as a designer.
“Live in the leading—the spaces in between the rules.” –Stefan Mumaw
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” –Salvador Dali
“Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks.” –Irene Au
“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” -Neville Brod
“The alternative to good design is always bad design. There is no such thing as no design.” –Adam Judge
“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” -Grace Hopper
“Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” –Ray Kroc
“Creativity is nothing but a mind set free.” –Torrie T. Asai
“Art is anything you can get away with.” –Marshal McLuhan
“Design transcends agenda. It speaks to the politics of optimism.” –Paul Bennett
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” –Paula Scher
“Get rid of everything that is not essential to making a point.” –Christoph Niemann
“The role of the designer is that of a good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests” –Charles Eames
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” –David Carson
“Creativity is nothing but the way to solve new problems.”
“Make it simple, but significant.” –Don Draper
“Design can be art. Design can be simple. That’s why it’s so complicated.” –Paul Rand
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” –Leonardo da Vinci
“Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for design to breathe.” –Wojciech Zieliński
“Leave it better than you found it.” –Bruce A. Nordstrom
“Look at usual things with unusual eyes.” –Vico Magistretti
“People ignore designs that ignore people” –Frank Chimero
“You don’t have to be ‘a creative’ to be creative.” –Droby Ben-Menachem
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” -Douglas Adams
“For every complex problem, there is an aswer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” –H. L. Mencken
“Design is thinking made visual.” –Saul Bass
“Good design is honest.” –Dieter Rams
“The best way to predict the future is to create it” –Abraham Lincoln
“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.” –Paul Rand
“Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.” –Charles Eames
“How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.” –Andrew Grove
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” –Joe Sparano
“Where do new ideas come from? The answer is simple: differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions.” –Nicholas Negroponte
“Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.” –Paul Arden
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that.You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” –Paraphrased from Charles Bukowski’s poem “Roll the Dice”
“The goal of a designer is to listen, observe, understand, sympathize, empathize, synthesize, and glean insights that enable him or her to ‘make the invisible visible.’ –Hillman Curtis
“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.” –Massimo Vignelli
“Those who don’t build must burn.” –Ray Bradbury
“It is not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people’s lives.” –Don Norman
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” –Ralf Speth
“You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.” –George Nelson
“If you do it right, it will last forever.” –Massimo Vignelli
“I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.” –John Cleese
“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” -Brian Reed
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” –Henry Ford
“Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked. If one brings up an idiosyncratic question, the answer he gives will necessarily be unique as well.” -Kenya Hara
“Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.” –John Maeda
“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” –Massimo Vignelli
“Design everything on the assumption that people are not heartless or stupid but marvelously capable, given the chance.” –John Chris Jones
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Leave it better than you found it.” –Robert Baden-Powell
“There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.” –Irene Etzkorn
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” –John Maeda
“The time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases.” –William Edmund Hick
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” –Steve Jobs
“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.” –Paul Rand
“Simplicity, wit, and good typography.” –Michael Bierut
“Design is more important than technology in most consumer applications.” –Dave McClure
“Practice safe design: Use a concept.” –Petrula Vrontikis
“They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes.” –Leo McGinneva
“The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic ‘right-brain’ thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn’t.” –Daniel Pink
“Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.” –M.C. Escher
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” –Charles Eames
“Great design is a multi-layered relationship between human life and its environment.” –Naoto Fukasawa
“Above all, think of life as a prototype. We can conduct experiments, make discoveries, and change our perspectives. We can look for opportunities to turn processes into projects that have tangible outcomes. We can learn how to take joy in the things we create whether they take the form of a fleeting experience or an heirloom that will last for generations. We can learn that reward comes in creation and re-creation, no just in the consumption of the world around us. Active participation in the process of creation is our right and our privilege. We can learn to measure the success of our ideas not by our bank accounts by their impact on the world.” –Tim Brown
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” –Albert Einstein
“Creativity is only as obscure as your reference.” –Unknown via Aaron Wiggan
“There’s the whole Buddhist thing about the essence of a bowl being its emptiness—that’s why it’s useful. Its emptiness allows it to hold something. I guess that means that design must talk about something else. If you make design about design, you’re just stacking bowls, and that’s not what bowls are for.” –Frank Chimero
“Get in over your head as often and as joyfully as possible.” –Alexander Isley
“Design is so simple. That’s why it’s so complicated.” –Paul Rand
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” –E. F. Schumacher
“Good designers must always be avant-gardists, always one step ahead of the times. They should–and must–question everything generally thought to be obvious. They must have an intuition for people’s changing attitudes. For the reality in which they live, for their dreams, their desires, their worries, their needs, their living habits. They must also be able to assess realistically the opportunities and bounds of technology.” –Dieter Rams
“No. I don’t think the Empire had Wookiees in mind when they designed it, Chewie.” –Han Solo to Chewbacca about the Tydirium imperial shuttle they’re flying
“Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.” –Elon Musk
“Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.” –Jay-Z
“A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist, and evolutionary strategist.” –Buckminster Fuller
“A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” –Martin LeBlanc, Iconfinder
“Design isn’t crafting a beautiful textured button with breathtaking animation. It’s figuring out if there’s a way to get rid of the button altogether.” –Edward Tufte
“Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer … But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable … They are people willing to take social risks—to do things that others might disapprove of.” –Malcolm Gladwell
“I would be happy to learn just half the stuff I already thought I learned.” –Unknown
“Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people.” –B.J. Fogg
“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” –Jessica Hische
“As we decrease uncertainty, we give ourselves permission to increase fidelity.” –Jonathan Irwin
“Curiosity about life in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” –Leo Burnett
“Less is more work.” –Patric McCue
“Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.” –Tate Linden
“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” –Mark Weiser
“Y’all talk about UX like it’s just another feature. For a user, it literally is the product. Full stop. Everything else is inside baseball.” –Startup L. Jackson Twitter account
“Design and art are independent coordinates that provide their greatest satisfactions when experienced simultaneously.” –Milton Glaser
“Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.” –Charles Eames
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” –Joe Sparano
“When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” –Walt Disney
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” –Jeffrey Zeldman
“The soul never thinks without an image.” –Aristotle
“Do good work for good people.” –Aaron Draplin
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” –Robert L. Peters
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” –Sir Ken Robinson
“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.” –David Ogilvy
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” Ralf Speth
“Effective problem solving in design requires a balance of strategy and spontaneity, intelligence and creativity.” Maggie Macnab
“Because the eye has seen, thoughts are structured upon images and not upon ideas.” David Consuegra
“A distinctive appearance and a simple set of characteristics lead to an extremely flexible brand.” Woodrow Phoenix
“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
“Graphic Design for its own sake will never happen, because the concept cancels itself out, a poster about nothing other than itself is not Graphic Design, it’s, makin’ art.” Chip Kidd
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” Joe Sparano
“Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.” George Santayana
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” Robert L. Peters
“Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas.” Chip Kidd
“When I studied graphic design, I learned a valuable lesson: There’s no perfect answer to the puzzle, and creativity is a renewable resource.” Biz Stone
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” Jeffrey Zeldman
“I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” Bob Gill
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” David Carson
“You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.” George Nelson
“Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” Issey Miyake
“Directive design gives an either or choice, similar to a traffic sign. Interpretive design allows for personal choice, in the same way symbolism allows for individual meaning.” Maggie Macnab
“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” Frank Chimero
“Art is nothing more than creating an emotion in your own form.” Shannon L. Alder
“You have power as a designer to change the relationship someone has with an object. Your challenge is to keep people looking. Build in those little details. To some people, they might mean a lot.” David Pearson
“Practice safe design. Use a concept.” Petrula Vrontikis
“There are three responses to a piece of design yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” Milton Glaser
“Graphic designers judge a cover by its book.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” Lindon Leader
“Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” Jaun-Carlos Fernandez
“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” Brian Reed
“Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.” Chip Kidd
“You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt or in front of a piece of graphic design.” Stefan Sagmeister
“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” Neville Brody
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face“ – Eleanor Roosevelt
“ Fall down seven times, get up eight“ – Japanese Proverb
“Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop“ – Jeffrey Zeldman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication“ – Leonardo Da Vinci
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent“ – Joe Sparano
“Practice safe design; Use a concept“ – Petrula Vrontikis
“Design is intelligence made visible“ – Alina Wheeler
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future“ – Robert L. Peters
“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them“ – Bruce Lee
“The worst logo applied well is better than the best logo applied poorly“ – Jacob Cass
“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it“ – Pablo Picasso
“Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking“ – Chris Pullman
“Supposing is good, but finding out is better“ – Mark Twain
“Do not seek to change what has come before. Seek to create that which has not“ – David Airey
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover“ – Mark Twain
“ Owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer“ – Gabriel Von Satzger
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what? “ – Sydney Harris
“Technology over technique produces emotionless design“ – Daniel Mall
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great“ – Mark Twain
“Be stimulated by rejection“ – Bob Gill
“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means“ – Albert Einstein
“An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it“ – Bill Bernbach
“Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless“ – Tim Blixseth
“Design isn’t finished until somebody is using it“ – Brenda Laurel
“Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was“ – Richard L. Evans
“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well“ – Brian Reed
“Stop looking at yourself as a designer, and start thinking of yourself as a deliverer of ideas“ – Stle Melvr
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage“ – Seneca
“Designing a product is designing a relationship“ – Steve Rogers
“Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it“ – Joe Clark
Ending thoughts on these graphic design quotes
After reading all of these amazing quotes, it’s hard not to be inspired to create something truly wonderful.
If you enjoyed reading this article with graphic design quotes, you should read these as well:
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