Design Quotes

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
― Steve Jobs

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

“When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.”
― William Gibson, Zero History

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”
― John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity

“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.

[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker

“Simple is good.”
― Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

“Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

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

“I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle creativity.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“The woman is the most perfect doll that i have dressed with delight and admiration.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“CIRCLES OF LIFE

Everything
Turns,
Rotates,
Spins,
Circles,
Loops,
Pulsates,
Resonates,
And
Repeats.

Circles
Of life,
Born from
Pulses
Of light,
Vibrate
To
Breathe,
While
Spiraling
Outwards
For
Infinity
Through
The lens
Of time,
And into
A sea
Of stars
And
Lucid
Dreams.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller

“When the image is new, the world is new.”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

“Our critics make us strong!
Our fears make us bold!
Our haters make us wise!
Our foes make us active!
Our obstacles make us passionate!
Our losses make us wealthy!
Our disappointments make us appointed!
Our unseen treasures give us a
known peace!

Whatever is designed against us will work for us!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

“...But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice... I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.”
― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

“Everything is design. Everything!”
― Paul Rand

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
― steve jobs

“Think of yourself as a brand. You need to be remembered. What will they remember you for? What defines you? If you have it in you, do something that defines you. Invent something, develop a unique skill, get noticed for something — it creates a talking point.”
― Chris Arnold

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”
― Louis Nizer

“Real artists ship.”
― Steve Jobs

“If you can design one thing, you can design everything.”
― Massimo Vignelli

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
― Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

“Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”
― Piet Hein

“What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information

“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.”
― Joe Sparano

“Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.”
― Tate Linden