Quotes & Sayings About Simple Design

The chair was a simple Scandinavian design of chrome and white leather. Beautiful, clean, and silent, with not an ounce of warmth, like a fine rain falling under the midnight sun. — Haruki Murakami

Whenever something is engineered as complex, it is designed to keep you simple. — Richard Diaz

She was the sort of person who needed to be kept happy, he realized. Not as a matter of selfish expectation, but as a simple fact of design; like a piano or a harp, she'd been made to function best at a certain tuning. — Kate Morton

[Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation.
Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to. — Alain De Botton

Look. Folks. It's simple. If you have poor taste in decorating, don't go nuts in the entryway. Wait until your guests are inside before you spring something unusual on them. — James Lileks

What is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the clear portrayal of complexity. Not the complication of the simple; rather the task of the designer is to give visual access to the subtle and the difficult - that is, revelation of the complex. — Edward Tufte

I love Prada shirts because they're so decorative and figure-hugging, but I also like Reiss shirts because they're clean, simple and look as if they've come off the peg from a design house. — Jamie Bamber

For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know
without ever having constructed one ourselves
that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209) — Alain De Botton

Any time you see signs or labels added to a device, it is an indication of bad design: a simple lock should not require instructions. — Donald A. Norman

I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn't cost much," he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses. "It was the original vision for Apple. That's what we tried to do with the first Mac. That's what we did with the iPod. — Walter Isaacson

Some websites are completely optimized for simple conver- sion, and it's easy to tell. The design centers on one clear call to action, a vivid lozenge labeled with a verb. — Erika Hall

Never forget that all these people are primarily a visual people. They are designers, window dressers, models, photographers, graphic artists. They design the windows at Saks. Do you understand? They are a visual people, and they value the eye, and their sins, as Saint Augustine said, are the sins of the eye. And being people who live on the surface of the eye, they cannot be expected to have minds or hearts. It sounds absurd but it's that simple. Everything is beautiful here, and that is all it is: beautiful. Do not expect anything else, do not expect nourishment for anything but your eye - and you will handle it all beautifully. You will know exactly what you are dealing with. — Andrew Holleran

So that's our approach. Very simple, and we're really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we're running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let's make it simple. Really simple." Apple's design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Walter Isaacson

Simple and intuitive design is what inspires and drives me. — Dave Morin

Despite its simple and humble design, Zik is certainly today one of our most successful products in terms of intuitive ergonomics. — Philippe Starck

The reason for designing new media is simple - to subtly and quietly change the world. — Hillman Curtis

Men's clothing is more pure in design. It's more simple and has no decoration. Women want that. When I started designing, I wanted to make men's clothes for women. But there were no buyers for it. Now there are. I always wonder who decided that there should be a difference in the clothes of men and women. Perhaps men decided this. — Yohji Yamamoto

Jesus has prepared the way and has made following our destiny possible, whereas we are helpless by ourselves. We can find and fulfill our purpose by responding to the clear, simple call of Jesus Christ: "Follow Me." He is the doorway to fulfilling our destiny, where our divine design and God-ordained purpose live in perfect harmony. — Charles R. Swindoll

Oh, well, it might look like a patterned world, laid out in prim design, but to those living there it could never be so simple. They were as alive as she: that old peasant contriving to outwit the cold; that woman anxiously counting her comical flock lest one goose escape her vigilance; all those who slept, or toiled, or loved under the low-hung roofs or the sharp turrets. Those people out there, if they caught sight of her own face pressed close to the window pane, might be speculating about her. To them she was part of the pattern of the lumbering train with its trail of smoke and little boxlike carriages. Perhaps they envied her, riding at ease to distant Paris. How little they knew of that! How little she herself know what awaited her at the end of the journey! — Rachel Field

...I'm not saying simple code takes less time to write. You'd think it would since you end up with less total code, but a good solution isn't an accretion of code, it's a distillation of it. — Robert Nystrom

Throughout this book, we've been evangelizing simplicity, but ironically, the practice of simplicity is not simple. It is easy to build a bulky design by adding layer upon layer of navigation and features; it's much more difficult to create simple, graceful designs. Paring designs to essential elements while maintaining elegance and functionality requires courage and discipline. — Jakob Nielsen

Keep it small. Keep it simple. Give it time. An exercise program such as yoga is a slow process. It is slow by design. But, in order to secure the gains and add to them, you have to keep it up. And guess what, the more you do it, the more your desire to do it grows. It is the same with building core spiritual muscles. You may have a period of intense growth - perhaps some adversity that drives you to your knees and calls forth the blessings of heaven. But to secure those gains, we must continue to invite the Holy Ghost into our lives - daily. — Virginia H. Pearce

Indeed the early history of rocket design could be read as the simple desire to get the rocket to function long enough to give an opportunity to discover where the failure occurred. Most early debacles were so benighted that rocket engineers could have been forgiven for daubing the blood of a virgin goat on the orifice of the firing chamber. — Norman Mailer

Design a clear and simple interface. The primary task of the interface is to present the player with a choice of the available actions at each moment and to provide instant feedback when the player makes a choice. — Jordan Mechner

Space exploration must be undertaken not only out of simple human curiosity but also to further the survival of the species. The twentieth century has seen the unprecedented development and proliferation of magnificent technologies. Many of them, through design, ignorance, or misuse, are capable of destroying life as well as enhancing it. Space exploration alone holds the promise of eventual escape from a dying planet, provided we wisely manage our resources in the meantime and actually survive that long. — Edgar Mitchell

Keep it simple, stupid. Good game design shouldn't keep you looking at the manual but should have enough depth where you feel like you bring something new to the game every time you play. — Rob Manuel

The really blisteringly original games are incredibly simple. — Paul Reiche III

C is not clean - the language has many gotchas and traps, and although its semantics are simple in some sense, it is not any cleaner than the assembly-language design it is based on. — Erik Naggum

A distinctive appearance and a simple set of characteristics lead to an extremely flexible brand. (pg. 38) — Woodrow Phoenix

[Graphics] is a strict and simple system of signs, which anyone can learn to use and which leads to better understanding. — Jacques Bertin

I like games that are simple. Not games that are trivial, but also not games that require you to invest a week or to relearn something. I like games that you can just pick up, sit down in front of, and get going. — Sid Meier

Imagine if all the car makers in the world were to sit down together to design one extremely simple, embellishment-free, functional car that was made from the most environmentally-sustainable materials, how cheap to buy and humanity-and-Earth-considerate that vehicle would be. And imagine all the money that would be saved by not having different car makers duplicating their efforts, competing and trying to out-sell each other, and overall how much time that would liberate for all those people involved in the car industry to help those less fortunate and suffering in the world. Likewise, imagine when each house is no longer designed to make an individualised, ego-reinforcing, status-symbol statement for its owners and all houses are constructed in a functionally satisfactory, simple way, how much energy, labour, time and expense will be freed up to care for the wellbeing of the less fortunate and the planet. — Jeremy Griffith

The mistake many people make when they go to a bespoke tailor is they often think they need to do something special - either an interesting design feature, or a particularly interesting or unique-looking cloth. I say do the opposite. Stick to something really simple, because this will be a suit that you will really want to wear, so start with something very straightforward and you will get an enormous amount of joy wearing it. — Patrick Grant

Design should be easy in the sense that every step should be obviously and clearly identifiable. Simplify elements to make change simple so you can manage the technical risk. — Kent Beck

The K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle was pounded into my head in school and I still follow it today in most of my designs. I know that my most successful efforts are the simplest. I always find myself trying to subtract detail from design concepts in an attempt to distill the idea down to the most basic communication tool. — Jeff Fisher

If a product feature or user design experience isn't achieving virility, it's wrong, plain and simple. In the old days, the product team would come up with something, and the marketing team had to figure out how to sell it to the public, either by educating them or using old-fashioned — Jose Casanova

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

Toshiaki learned that all living organisms were governed by their DNA. He was impressed by perfection of this system.Why did existence have the ability to design such a beautiful code? And how could such a simple structure account for endless diversity of life forms? — Hideaki Sena

There is no "era" of simple, focused, concept-driven identity design. There is only design that grows out of understanding audiences for specific problems, and that evolves from an idea. This is an approach that does not depend on any specific time period or its technology. — Ivan Chermayeff

Dynamical beauty transcends specific objects and phenomena, and invites us to imagine the expanse of possibilities. For example, the sizes and shapes of actual planetary orbits are not simple. They are neither the (compounded) circles of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Nicolaus Copernicus, nor even the more nearly accurate ellipses of Kepler, but rather curves that must be calculated numerically, as functions of time, evolving in complicated ways that depend on the positions and masses of the Sun and the other planets. There is great beauty and simplicity here, but it is only fully evident when we understand the deep design. The appearance of particular objects does not exhaust the beauty of the laws. — Frank Wilczek

Within the universe's intention and its unique design around relationship, we find that the focal point of the universe, the motive of the universe, is love. God created life so that we could know love. Everything God does is an expression of his love. It is neither trite nor superficial that the Scriptures summarize this in three simple words: "God is love." It is critical to understand this because, if we are to reclaim our role in the creative process and express our lives as masterful works of art, we, too, must be sure that our motivation is the expansion of love. — Erwin Raphael McManus

I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature. It also requires a willingness to accept objectives which are limited by physical, logical, and technological constraints, and to accept a compromise when conflicting objectives cannot be met. No committee will ever do this until it is too late. — C.A.R. Hoare

Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy. — Bill Gates

I think my style revolves around the philosophy that less is more, that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. That goes for my taste in design and in clothes, and even affects the way I approach music. I'm all about keeping things simple, and minimal, but being able to convey something powerful through that approach. — G-Eazy

The strongest logos tell simple stories. — Sol Sender

What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program. — Tony Hoare

Human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we with our capacity to love that fives meaning to the indifferent universe, and yet most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even to find joy from simple things. — Woody Allen

If there's a simple, easy design principle that binds everything together, it's probably about starting with the people. — Bill Moggridge

There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors. — Tony Hoare

If you insist on reducing it to its basic elements, it's the sure and simple knowledge that there's something more out there, something greater than yourself, than mankind: a grand plan, a design that can't be comprehended by you or by any other human being, because it is numinous, it is God's design, something only He can fathom. — Eric Van Lustbader

Uniqlo as a company has always developed new fabrics and is always trying to be innovative. The design is simple, so the fabric is important. — Nicola Formichetti

There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple. — Frank Gehry

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

The best things in science are both beautiful and simple, a fact that all too many teacher conceal from their students, by accident or design. — John Gribbin

Simple code takes effort to design. It is not the same thing as overly simplistic code. — Anonymous

Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They're not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we're waiting to die. — Alan Moore

The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence. — Martin Gardner

The primary conversion goal on a page drives all of its elements, including copy, design, and layout. Goals that distract visitors from the primary conversion goal should be reworked or removed. Never lose focus of your main objective on the site (conversion). When you lose focus, your conversion rates will drop. It's that simple. — Khalid Saleh

Every contrivance of man, every tool, every instrument, every utensil, every article designed for use, of each and every kind, evolved from a very simple beginnings. — Robert Collier

Design is a field of concern, response, and enquiry as often as decision and consequence ... it is convenient to group design into three simple categories, though the distinctions are in no way absolute, nor are they always so described: product design (things), environment design (places) and communication design (messages). — Norman Potter

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more — Woody Allen

For many years, Darrel Royal was the football coach for the University of Texas at Austin. They always had great teams and winning records. Sometimes, however, when they won a close game, a sportswriter would suggest that while the Longhorns were skilled, they had been lucky on that day. Hearing it one time too often, Coach Royal finally said, "Luck is partly the residue of design, the simple act of being prepared for luck when it arrives." And there is something else to luck, Royal said - luck follows speed. Move, and luck finds you. Move quickly, and it finds you more often. — Mac Anderson

God's design for taking the gospel to the world is a slow, intentional, simple process that involves every one of his people sacrificing every facet of their lives to multiply the life of Christ in others. — David Platt

On this simple unit-system [of building blocks] ruled on the low table-top all these forms were combined by the child into imaginative patter. Design was recreation! ... The virtue of all this lay in the awakening of the childmind to rhythmic structure in Nature - giving the child a sense of innate cause-and-effect otherwise far beyond child-comprehension. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Good design today requires more vision (a larger point of view versus the single brilliant idea), more consistency (a deeper underlying structure of language and form versus the simple, uniform application of visual elements) and more patience (persistence over time versus creative authoritarianism). — William Drenttel

With the Solaris, however, I wanted to design a very simple, elegant dress watch — Marc Newson

No one disputes that seeming order can come out of the application of simple rules. But who wrote the rules? — Robert J. Sawyer

Immutable objects are simple. They can only be in one state, which is carefully controlled by the constructor. One of the most difficult elements of program design is reasoning about the possible states of complex objects. Reasoning about the state of immutable objects, on the other hand, is trivial.

Immutable objects are also safer. Passing a mutable object to untrusted code, or otherwise publishing it where untrusted code could find it, is dangerous - the untrusted code might modify its state, or, worse, retain a reference to it and modify its state later from another thread. On the other hand, immutable objects cannot be subverted in this manner by malicious or buggy code, so they are safe to share and publish freely without the need to make defensive copies. — Brian Goetz

If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti-Hindu and anti-national, then I secede. I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic. I am a citizen of the earth. I own no territory. I have no flag. My policies are simple. I'm willing to sign any nuclear non-proliferation treaty or nuclear test ban treaty that's going. Immigrants are welcome. You can help me design our flag. — Arundhati Roy

If only I had known a year ago what I'd be facing now. Until last year I lived with the innocent arrogance that my life was a simple product of effort, will, and design. But now I am a house of cards, held precariously by the fragile conspiracy of wind, weight, and angle. Perhaps it is best we cannot see into our futures. — Martha Manning

The tall modern office building is the machine pure and simple ... the engine, the motor and the battleship the works of the century. — Frank Lloyd Wright

If your product solves real problems, has a simple, intuitive interaction and an appealing, easy-to-read visual design, yet people aren't using it, chances are your product is failing to communicate at a human level. — Everett N. McKay

Leon Theremin's original designs are elegant, ingenious and effective. As electronics goes, the theremin is very simple. But there are so many subtleties hidden in the details of the design. It's like a great sonnet, or a painting, or a speech, that is perfectly done on more than one level. — Robert Moog

I think hand-drawn animation can be something really special. If the character design is quite simple it has the ability to allow people to easily relate to the characters in a special manner. — Tomm Moore

When you buy things that are expensive, like a sofa or something that really feels like an investment, you need to keep it as plain as possible, as simple as possible. Make sure that it's a clean design that will work with whatever style you want it to. — Nate Berkus

Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making. — Jack Welch

Good designers can take the complex and make it profoundly simple. Great designers will also stir your soul and bewitch you with the beauty of their design - Quote by Aziz Musa (Quote found in book by Jock Busuttil) — Jock Busuttil

Now he had learned that a machine, simple in its design, could produce results of infinite complexity. — Neal Stephenson