Good Design Quotes & Sayings

If you have total freedom to design, you won't get anything interesting. So I give myself restraints in order to kind of push myself through, to create something new. It's the torture that I give myself, the pain and the struggle that I go through. So it's self-given, but that's the only way, I think, to make a strong, good new creation. — Rei Kawakubo

Design schools are good, I guess, sometimes I visit schools, but they are very very limiting. — Marc Newson

Life is like a game of bridge ... we did not invent the game or design the cards;
we did not frame the rules and we cannot control the dealing. The cards are dealt out to us whether they be good or bad... But we can play the game well or play it badly. A skillful player may have poor hand and win the game. A bad player may have a good hand and yet make a mess of it. Our life is a mixture of necessity and freedom, chance and choice... we may not change events but we can change our approach to events. — Dr. S Radhakrishnan

If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design. — Ralf Speth

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. — Freeman Dyson

Discipline is "the systematic management of your life to prepare and position you for your divine design." Discipline and stewardship are one and the same. Discipline brings order to life and is absolutely required if we're going to be good stewards of the call to leadership. — Kent Ingle

Aesthetic isn't simply about good design for good design's sake. — Noah Kerner

Good design is probably 98% common sense. Above all, an object must function well and efficiently-and getting that part right requires a good deal of time and attention. — Terence Conran

Good designs are in special places for those who has appreciation; bad designs are everywhere. — Baris Gencel

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It's not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something that the world didn't know it was missing. — Paola Antonelli

Good design should be honest. — Ferdinand Porsche

Applying good sense to religion and religion to life. This is the field in which I design to labor — Theodore Parker

Well you're in your little room
and you're working on something good
but if it's really good
you're gonna need a bigger room
and when you're in the bigger room
you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started sitting in your little room — Jack White

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make. - IRVING JOHN GOOD, "SPECULATIONS CONCERNING THE FIRST ULTRAINTELLIGENT MACHINE," 1965 — Ray Kurzweil

Improving your process won't move you from good to great design. It'll move you from bad to average. — Fred Brooks

When sin entered the world, it broke the goodness of God's design. And sin absolutely breaks God's heart. But in no way did sin affect the goodness of God. He has a plan, a good plan to rid this world of every effect of sin. — Lysa TerKeurst

To say that God elects to fashion rational creatures in his image, and so grants them the freedom to bind themselves and the greater physical order to another master - to say that he who sealed up the doors of the sea might permit them to be opened again by another, more reckless hand - is not to say that God's ultimate design for his creatures can be thwarted. It is to acknowledge, however, that his will can be resisted by a real and (by his grace) autonomous force of defiance, or can be hidden from us by the history of cosmic corruption, and that the final realization of the good he intends in all things has the form (not simply as a dramatic fiction, for our edification or his glory, nor simply as a paedogogical device on his part, but in truth) of a divine victory. — David Bentley Hart

This is an important rule: a good design is one that changes customer behavior for the better. — Eric Ries

We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11. — Neil Armstrong

I decided when I was a kid that I would only go out of the house if I felt good enough to be bothered. Could I be interrupted at dinner? Am I in the mood? If I am, I go out. If I'm not, I don't! So, it's the art of deciding what the truth of your job is, and what you can and cannot handle. You can design your stresses. — John Travolta

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Design is how you treat your customers. If you treat them well from an environmental, emotional, and aesthetic standpoint, you're probably doing good design. — Yves Behar

We drove slowly, neither of us speaking, and worked our way out of the Marina, up through Venice, and along the beach. It was automatic driving, going through the motions without conscious thought or direction, movement without destination or design. Pike hunkered low in the passenger's seat, his face dark in the bright sun, his dark lenses somehow molten and angry. It is not good to see Joe Pike angry. Better to see a male lion charge at close quarters. Better to hear someone scream, Incoming! — Robert Crais

Above all, John Galliano menswear is all about good design. And men have been short-changed by good design for too long. — John Galliano

I believe that the essence of good design is its ability to sustain long term integrity, to become classic and create a truly captivating home. — Candice Olson

It's funny, I don't even consider myself a rapper, I don't consider myself a designer, or even an actor. I just like creating stuff and trying to make good work, whatever it is. I don't care if it's designing toothbrushes. It's just making cool stuff to leave behind, that's all it is, it's nothing more. — Andre Benjamin

I haven't had a lot of good, soft things in my life," he said against my forehead. "Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it's that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn't taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation - "
"Stop describing me please."
"You're the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I've ever met," he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. "So, when I seem possessive or I'm raving like a lunatic, it's just that part of me is still very afraid that I'll lose that - that I'll lose you. I love you. — Molly Harper

Bloody North," said Shev as she picked her way towards it and had a tentative drag at the ropes. "Even their bridges are shit."
"Their men are good," said Javre, clattering out with no fear whatsoever. "Far from subtle, but enthusiastic."
"Great," said Shev as she edged after, exchanging a mutually suspicious glance with a crow perched atop one of the posts. "Men. The one thing that interests me not at all."
"You should try them."
"I did. Once. Bloody useless. Like trying to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even speak your language, let alone understand the topic."
"Some are certainly more horizontally fluent than others."
"No. Just no. The hairiness, and the lumpiness, and the great big fumbling fingers and ... balls. I mean, balls. What's that about? That is one singularly unattractive piece of anatomy. That is just ... that is bad design, is what that is. — Joe Abercrombie

Good design is not about form following function. It is function with cultural content. By adding "cultural content" to the concept of "form follows function," objects cease to be finite or predictable. Maybe the right way to interpret the dictum is to first acknowledge that the function needs to be clearly understood before the form is considered. — Carl Magnusson

Good design doesn't cost, but it pays. — Richard Driehaus

Good designers copy; great designers steal. — Pablo Picasso

The problem is there are no simple "right" answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need - carefully thought out, well executed, and tested. — Steve Krug

Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well made sentence and it should only express one idea at a time, — Charles James

... everything we do is decent when the mind begins to forget - the design of life; and good when we are forgotten - the design of death. — Djuna Barnes

When you think a girl looks pretty, say it. But don't reference the thing that might reveal you are aware of the backstage process: e.g., say, "You look gorgeous tonight," not "I like how you did your makeup tonight." Also, a compliment means less if you compliment the thing and not the way the girl is carrying it off. So say, "You look so sexy in those boots," rather than "Those boots are really cool." I didn't make the boots! I don't care if you like the boots' design! We are magic to you: you have no idea how we got to look as good as we do. — Mindy Kaling

A product which is unceremoniously wasted to landfill at end of life surely can't be considered good design! — Neil Tierney

The difference between good design and great design is INTELLIGENCE — Tibor Kalman

I design from instinct. It's the only way I know how to live. What feels good. What feels right. What is needed. Give me a problem and I will approach it creatively, from my gut. — Donna Karan

Hunts Point Revival's reuse of the existing structure as part of the new development was conceptually bold and challenging. Overall, the project contained a good blend of creative sustainable design elements. The solar room for heating and ventilation was particularly creative and convincing. — Edward Mazria

The Homebrew Computer Club was the highlight of my life. I was too shy to ever talk in the club meeting, but the way that I could communicate sometimes was by doing good designs. I was very skilled at a certain type of circuit design. — Steve Wozniak

There's good movies and there's bad movies. The genres are never dead, it's just about how to apply them and articulate them and execute them - the story, the quality of the writing, the acting, the design elements, the directorial execution - all these things make it what it is. — Andy Garcia

I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent. I want to really test it out and say: O.K., you're not that good. You just reached the level here. I don't ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate. — Quentin Tarantino

Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended. — Raymond Loewy

When I design the clothes, I have a very good team around me, showing me different pieces and cuts. I'm very involved in the process, I go to L.A. and get onto the design floor, and I help pick out the best pieces. — Tiesto

Good design successfully manages the tensions between user needs, technology feasibility, and business viability. — Tim Brown

Aerial spirits, by great Jove design'd To be on earth the guardians of mankind: Invisible to mortal eyes they go, And mark our actions, good or bad, below: The immortal spies with watchful care preside, And thrice ten thousand round their charges glide: They can reward with glory or with gold, A power they by Divine permission hold. — Hesiod

I guess I could be singing about Superman, or about Zarathustra coming down from the mountain, but in my mind I was singing about Julian Assange. I wish I could say that Nietzsche inspired my lyrics but all I can honestly say is I was inspired by the graphic design of these '70s paperback covers for Beyond Good & Evil and The Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science. — Dean Wareham

Training the eye is the most important way to gain an appreciation and understanding of good design in busienss management. — Van Day Truex

An entrepreneurial economy is what made America great. People didn't come to settle the country several hundred years ago for all the good paying jobs. There weren't any. There was nothing but natural resources and opportunities. - Chris Lutz, Modular Career Design — Chris Lutz

Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, 'Why don't you make something for me?'
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, 'A box.'
'What for?'
'To put things in.'
'What things?'
'Whatever you have,' you said.
Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasures of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.
John — John Steinbeck

The fact is that if the writer's attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in itself, he is going to take great pains to control every excess, everything that does not contribute to this central meaning and design. He cannot indulge in sentimentality, in propagandizing, or in pornography and create a work of art, for all these things are excesses. They call attention to themselves and distract from the work as a whole. — Flannery O'Connor

Good design allows things to operate more efficiently, smoothly, and comfortably for the user. That's the real source of advantage. Businesses have started to understand this, so good design will become the price of entry ... Customers appreciate good design. While they can't necessarily point out what specifically makes it good, they know it feels better. There's a visceral connection. They are willing to pay for it, if you give them a great experience. — James P Hackett

Wherever there is a design that is highly successful in a broad range of similar environments, it is apt to emerge again and again, independently - the phenomenon known in biology as convergent evolution. I call these designs 'good tricks.' — Daniel Dennett

Silent moments are valuable! They give you a good opportunity to design new paths in your life! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Design is a form of competitive advantage. People tend to think of design as good art, good visual language, which it absolutely has to be. But it's also about the ability to do systems thinking. — James P Hackett

The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all. — Douglas Martin

No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business. — Carl Sagan

If I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job as is currently being done-I simply wouldn't have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education. — Paul Lockhart

He talks some more about classes he likes--not many--and those he doesn't like, and it is clear that, whatever sophisticated planning has gone into curriculum design at Alan's school, the distinction between a good class and a bad class, from his point of view, has a lot to do with the freedom it offers to stand up and walk around. — Dan Kindlon

If you think good architecture is expensive, try bad architecture. — Brian Foote

If you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients. — Michael Bierut

As a group, we want to follow good and green strategy. Setting targets is one element of that. The second part is to design products which meet environmental goals. — Jamshyd Godrej

People who design machines and airplanes {or buildings}, no matter how much they believe that what they do is good, the winds of time eventually turn them into tools of industrial civilization. They're cursed dreams. Animation, too. Beautiful yet cursed dreams. — Hayao Miyazaki

Good design should follow looking into the products and reputation of clients who approach you, but this does not mean you have to follow them into bed. — Ivan Chermayeff

A good designer is not the one who best follows the prescriptive steps of a method or technique, or the one who knows "the solution" in advance. Rather, a good designer
can approach, appreciate, and assess a complex and unique design situation. — Jonas Lxf6wgren

Trying to use all the existing technologies that were out there wouldn't work for us because none of them were flexible. Everything was rigid in some way, so we had to go on a manhunt, essentially for something that was a viable technology. So it was a good four-months of just designing and figuring out the lights. — Christine Bieselin Clark

I'm a woman for all seasons. I mix 'n' match, do designer and high street - keep all my good pieces. I design all my evening and cocktail dresses most of the time as I dislike what is out there. — Joan Collins

There are three things you need to do as a CEO-founder," Rabois says: "Think strategically, drive design, and drive technology. Some people who are really good at one can build a pretty foundational company. Most people who are very successful are good at two. But Jack is the only person in the Valley I've met who's all three. He's a first-rate strategist, a first-rate designer, and a first-rate technologist. — Keith Rabois

Carry a notebook and write down examples of good and poor design. After a week, you'll begin to realize that nearly everything is the product of a design decision. — Daniel H. Pink

We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful. — Joseph Addison

Good design for the home should be universal. A house should be like old shoes, comfortable, like a good friend ... The Japanese aesthetic is important to me. Very organic. They have a sense of the weight of the thing: very balanced. — Elsa Peretti

My skills weren't that I knew how to design a floppy disk, I knew how to design a printer interface, I knew how to design a modem interface; it was that, when the time came and I had to get one done, I would design my own, fresh, without knowing how other people do it. That was another thing that made me very good. All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money, and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I'd never once done that thing in my life. — Jessica Livingston

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. — Chetan Bhagat

I suppose "cartographer" is as good a description as any, but the Argosi do not draw maps of places, but rather of people... cultures.' She tapped the deck in my hand. 'You understand the meaning of the suits? ... look more closely at the individual cards and you'll see that the particular design on each card reflects part of the fundamental power structure of that society.'
pg 79 — Sebastien De Castell

Good design is not an applied veneer. — Raymond Loewy

The good is not a category that interests me. — Rem Koolhaas

I always take care to have interesting chord progressions, because you can have the best sound design in the club, and you'll kill it in the club, but in five years, kids will have better sound design. But if your music is good, you'll always be able to listen to it, even in 20 or 50 years. — Zedd

Too many companies believe that all they must do is provide a 'neat' technology or some 'cool' product or, sometimes, just good, solid engineering. Nope. All of those are desirable (and solid engineering is a must), but there is much more to a successful product than that: understanding how the product is to be used, design, engineering, positioning, marketing, branding-all matter. It requires designing the Total User Experience. — Donald A. Norman

A challenge always is good. Normal design does not come under the constraints of a small budget and time frame. But it has helped me to make quick and knowledgeable decisions. — Douglas Wilson

Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives. — Joseph Addison

Good design doesn't stem from intuition, talent, or luck (although I'll take a smidgen of each). It comes from research and understanding. — Anonymous

Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era - it's a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good. — Clement Mok

A good rule of thumb is as follows: If the numbers come from somebody wearing a tie (Wall Street economist or analyst, industry public relations department, captive think tank academic and so on), you ought to be very skeptical. By design messages from these people are intended to move markets, move merchandise and/or move public policy and are not a comment on the state of the physical universe. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

To design a desk which may cost $1,000 is easy for a furniture designer but to design a functional and good desk which shall cost only $50 can only be done by the very best — Ingvar Kamprad

Design is an art of situations. Designers respond to a need, a problem, a circumstance, that arises in the world. The best work is produced in relation to interesting situations - an open-minded client, a good cause, or great content. — Ellen Lupton

For most people, passion comes after they try something, discover they like it, and develop mastery - not before. To put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause. — William Burnett

...use design as a secret disguise to infiltrate whatever world you want to go into. If you do that over and over again, and then translate that interest and curiosity into the work that you're doing, you'll do great. — Michael Bierut

The difference between design and research seems to be a question of new versus good. Design doesn't have to be new, but it has to be good. Research doesn't have to be good, but it has to be new. I think these two paths converge at the top: the best design surpasses its predecessors by using new ideas, and the best research solves problems that are not only new, but worth solving. So ultimately design and research are aiming for the same destination, just approaching it from different directions. — Paul Graham

Humans are an absolute miracle of design. We come in all these fun shapes and sizes and we can survive all sorts of hardship and mistreatment and be practically as good as new the next day - try pouring a bottle of bourbon down your toaster and see just how well it works the next day - but the design's not perfect. Nothing is. And just because you love somebody won't make them love you back. — Paul Schmidtberger

Good design is a matter of discipline. It starts by looking at the problem and collecting all the available information about it. If you understand the problem, you have the solution. It's really more about logic than imagination. — Massimo Vignelli

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, — Donald A. Norman

I've generally got a good eye for design and proportion. — Bruce Oldfield

The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living. — Harry Bertoia

There are cases where you design something that looks good on paper and there's only one small part of it that's fun. You have to focus on that and throw the rest away. — Brent Iverson

First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life! — Irving Stone

You can design a mortgage system that is different without a Fannie and Freddie, but there are principles you have to have, to have a good system. — Jamie Dimon

Good design is innovative
2. Good design makes a product useful
3. Good design is aesthetic
4. Good design makes a product understandable
5. Good design is unobtrusive
6. Good design is honest
7. Good design is long-lasting
8. Good design is thorough, down to the last detail
9. Good design is environmentally friendly
10. Good design is as little design as possible — Dieter Rams

You'll feel better after you do a mile or two.'
'Why?' From her prone position, Emma threw up her hands. 'Who says? Who decided that people all of a sudden have to do miles every damn day, or that twisting themselves into unnatural shapes is good for them? I think it's the people who sell this hideous equipment, and the ones who design all the cute little outfits like the one you're wearing. — Nora Roberts

Doing something a long time does not mean you're good. It only means you've done it a long time. — Ed Benguiat

Good art inspires; Good design motivates. — Otl Aicher

Extremist material of any kind always looks gaudy and cheap, like a bad pizza menu. Not because they can't afford decent computers - these days you can knock up a professional CD cover on a pay-as-you-go mobile - but because anyone who's good at graphic design is likely to be a thoughtful, inquisitive sort by nature. And thoughtful, inquisitive sorts tend to think fascism is a bit shit, to be honest. If the BNP really were the greatest British party, they'd have the greatest British designer working for them - Jonathan Ive, perhaps, the man who designed the iPod. But they don't. They've got someone who tries to stab your eyes out with primary colours.
— Charlie Brooker