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Design Quotes

25 quotes about design. Every quote shows where it comes from and how far to trust it.

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Most quoted on design:

If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

William Morris

Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something.

Paola Antonelli

I have always believed that fashion was not made only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence.

Yves Saint-Laurent

When any great design thou dost intend,
Think of the means, the manner, and the end.

John Denham Of Prudence (1668)

Good design is also an act of communication between the designer and the user, except that all the communication has to come about by the appearance of the device itself. The device must explain itself.

Donald Norman The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

Good design looks right. It is simple (clear and uncomplicated). Good design is also elegant, and does not look contrived. A map should be aesthetically pleasing, thought provoking, and communicative

Arthur H. Robinson Elements of Cartography (1953)

From a structural point of view, design is totally useless... I tried to give my products a little sense and energy. But even when I gave the best of myself, it was absurd.

Philippe Starck Starck (2008)

Giannino Castiglioni was a sculptor. His work was realistic, always tied to the human figure, not fantastic or unreal. He had an attitude of constant analysis of people's characteristics.

Achille Castiglioni

One of the best ways to economize in building is to economize on ugliness. ...Nothing can be greater service in avoiding ugliness than a knowledge of the principles of design.

Ernest Flagg Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

People think it's this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Steve Jobs

Disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful... the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines.

Ernest Flagg Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A little thin flowery border round, neat not gaudy, and the Drury Lane Apollo with the harp at the top.

Charles Lamb

They float before my soul, the fair designs
Which I would body forth to Life and Power,
Like clouds, that with their wavering hues and lines
Pourtray majestic buildings:—

Felicia Hemans

The design process involves a series of operations. In map design, it is convenient to break this sequence into three stages. In the first stage, you draw heavily on imagination and creativity. You think of various graphic possibilities, consider alternative ways...

Arthur H. Robinson Elements of Cartography (1953)

As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design?

Ernest Flagg Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

As a noun, design is the named (although sometimes unnamable) structure or behavior of a system whose presence resolves or contributes to the resolution of a force or forces on that system. A design thus represents one point in a potential decision space. A design may be singular (representing a leaf decision) or it may be collective (representing a set of other decisions).

Grady Booch

In their work, designers often become expert with the device they are designing. Users are often expert at the task they are trying to perform with the device. [...] Professional designers are usually aware of the pitfalls. But most design is not done by professional designers, it is done by engineers, programmers, and managers.

Donald Norman The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

If the chief rules of good design were understood by the masses as they might be, nothing would do more to promote beauty, improve workmanship, add to the value of manufactures, and in many other ways further the general welfare and prosperity of the country. They are simple, easy to acquire, and should be taught with the alphabet.

Ernest Flagg Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

To my mind, design is closer to a sociological approach then a purely aesthetic creation.

Johan Neerman

Design is too important to be left to designers.

Raymond Loewy to Raymond Loewy in: Adam Richardson (2010)

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