Khoi Quotes & Sayings

You have this really powerful technological infrastructure that can do really tremendous things. At the same time, it's never going to be as flexible as we'd like it to be. Just by nature of web technology. — Khoi Vinh

Along with my spiritual practices of meditation, affirmative prayer, and visioning, what catalyzes my sense of aliveness is putting those practices into action by being of service to others. — Michael Beckwith

I think the way design was practiced for most of the 20th century was very declarative. A designer came up with a solution for a project and put it in place and shipped the solution and it landed in a reader or a customer's hands as a brochure. They would see it as a poster, or as a piece of signage. And that was sort of it. That was the end of it. I think Internet technology has really upended that whole equation because in some ways a designer's work is never really done online. — Khoi Vinh

I guess if there was a desert island scenario and I only could take one font with me, I guess it would be Helvetica, though it has it's limitations, I think it's incredibly versatile and gets the job done and I also think it's one of the typefaces that will really survive the test of time beyond the next several decades if not into the next century. — Khoi Vinh

I think I sort of have a love/hate relationship with a reputation I have for being the designer who works with grids. — Khoi Vinh

I think now we're seeing the pendulum switch back to this idea where conversations are more important, if not more important than documents. — Khoi Vinh

Even though more people can build websites today than even 10 years ago, I think there's probably even less really deep understand of how a good website gets built than there was even then. — Khoi Vinh

I think as technology and expertise makes possible these sort of amazing levels of fidelity to the real world, a lot of people sort of get sort of - what's the word I'm looking for - seduced into that. And after a time, they get tired of it and they become a little bit more interested, I think at a certain level of subtraction and a new level of sophistication. — Khoi Vinh

Remember the Hottentots?" asked James. "They've become the Khoi now, which means that the Germans will have to retire that wonderful word of theirs, Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentater, which means, as you know, one who attacks the aunt of a Hottentot potentate. — Alexander McCall Smith

We are who we are. I have no desire to be something else. But right now I'm afraid of what it means for those who I care about. — Andrea Cremer

I think the key difference between the web and print medium is, on the web or any digital medium, you're dealing with this added element of behavior. — Khoi Vinh

Even though the means of production are more available than ever, I think the true expertise is as rare as ever. — Khoi Vinh

Designers from start to finish now in digital media have to think in a much more sort of thoughtful serious and humble way about how design audiences will receive their products. — Khoi Vinh

Christians are famous for telling people to be "child-like" and yet one of the greatest qualities of a child (the never ending list of questions) is often discouraged. — D.R. Silva

You have to have a balance and understand that as much as you would like to have absolute control over everything, it's just not realistic. — Khoi Vinh

Unsolicited redesigns are terrific and fun and useful, and I hope designers never stop doing them. But as they do so, I also hope they remember it helps no one - least of all the author of the redesign - to assume the worst about the original source and the people who work hard to maintain and improve it, even though those efforts may seem imperfect from the outside. — Khoi Vinh

I know I've got to pay some tax, but I hate the fact that they collect millions of pounds a day from the congestion charge and I don't see anything or anyone benefitting from it. Where are the new hospitals? — Ray Winstone

Thin Burning Light Gun
If the car found life, it could try to use this gun to learn about it, but the life might not be alive when it was done. — Randall Munroe

It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive. — Erma Bombeck

The entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor. — Karl Marx

I think there's always something about design that is going to be very difficult for more than a small fraction of people to really get. — Khoi Vinh

I know that what keeps me interested in my job and in the medium in general that what makes every few months more interesting, or newly interesting every few weeks, is the idea that everything is changing, that the ideas that you think are sacrosanct and unimpeachable suddenly are up for grabs again. — Khoi Vinh

I think a lot more people are able to take on a design challenge than ever before. And this was true 20 years ago when the desktop publishing revolution came about that allowed people with Macintosh's at home to produce professional-looking newsletters or publications for the first time. So, there's a long march toward more democratization for design. — Khoi Vinh

Before Gutenberg, there was this really very strong oral storytelling culture where being able to relay stories from person to person was sufficient. And then, with the introduction of printing and mass communication, suddenly somebody had a lot of authority invested in the idea of a single canonical expression of a document or a piece of communication. — Khoi Vinh

I think we are in this era right now where every element in a webpage is rendered to within an inch of its life. I think if it's a button, it looks like a physical button, you know, if it's a mailbox that's meant to signal a messaging functionality then the whole mailbox right down to the rivets on the hypothetical metallic housing is rendered. — Khoi Vinh

The way I look at my job, I spend a lot of time trying to create the conditions for good design to happen and I don't get an opportunity to do a lot of hands on work. — Khoi Vinh

I think there's a huge - there's a huge desire in me to make sense of the world in a way that I think you can trace back to that early disruption, this idea of wanting to compensate for that really kind of traumatic experience and sort of seeing its impact on my immediate and extended family. — Khoi Vinh

Black men - one might be the president. Well, America's in too much trouble - I don't want that job now. — Muhammad Ali

I think design does evolve in a meaningful sense. I think if you look at design as a part of the continuum of communication, since even before Guttenberg. — Khoi Vinh

I'm in the business of value judgments . — Tucker Carlson

Things have a behavior online, whereas in print, there is a single canonical expression for them, but online everything responds to different criteria or has inherent states to it based on that criteria. So, you have to design that in a different way. It's a completely different dynamic even though it may look similar. — Khoi Vinh

I think if you took away all the designers and automated the process tomorrow, the end result would be really, really dissatisfying and disturbing to a lot of people. So, I think there's a lot of value that print designers have. — Khoi Vinh

And the general opinion is we are much better on stage than in the studio. — Stewart Copeland

I think the thing about the Internet is that it has so many characteristics that can be easily construed to be similar or almost identical to print that it can be misleading. — Khoi Vinh

Like we were just jagged puzzle pieces that made no sense alone but together we fit perfectly. That's what life is supposed to be like for normal people right? You find that other piece that matches yours that completes yours. And you make the jags and the crevices fit, even if they don't go in perfectly smooth, even if they require a few adjustments. You don't demand perfection you make it work and appreciate the parts that fit instead of obsessing about the small angles that don't. — James Patterson

I think there's a really selfish part of me that wishes I had the tools that I had today in the context of a designer practicing in the middle part of the 20th century when creating a single expression of an idea was the norm. — Khoi Vinh

I have a few memories of being young here in the United States, but almost no recollections of being young in Vietnam. — Khoi Vinh

You have to design a story that might appear on the front page of the newspaper for the website. You don't have to design it in such a way that it can be self contained, that it makes sense if you never hit the front page of it. — Khoi Vinh

He wanted to tell the baby that Paris was like a poem in stone. — Simon Van Booy

I think the obstacles are the same as the opportunities, is the way we like to look at them. — Khoi Vinh