70 Famous Creativity and Design Quotes and Sayings for Inspiration

Design is all around us, in our homes, in buildings, architecture, landscaping, products, movies, television, and much more. The world could not function without designers and artists. Without us, everything would be plain and boring, without imagination or inspiration.

Designers are not only known for their amazing designs, but also for their inspirational and motivational quotes.

Need inspiration? Look no further! We have compiled a list of 70 of the BEST inspirational quotes about design. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment below. Feel free to share these quotes as well – especially the quotes images.

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1. “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” Brian Reed
   
   
2. “If you can design one thing, you can design everything.” Massimo Vignelli
   
   
3. “Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.” Paul Rand
   
   
   
   
   
4. “Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” Issey Miyake
   
   
5. “You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.” Zig Ziglar
   
   
6. “Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” Juan-Carlos Fernandez.
   
   
7. “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” Robert L. Peters
   
    
8. “Whenever something is engineered as complex, it is designed to keep you simple.” Richard Diaz
   
    
9. “When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.” William Gibson, Zero History
   
   
10. “Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.” Ralph Caplan
    
    
11. “The most important part of design is finding all the issues to be resolved. The rest are details.” Soumeet Lanka
    
     
12. “Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.” Hans Hofmann
    
    
    
    
    
13. “Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” Steve Jobs
    
    
14. “Design is where science and art break even.” Robin Mathew
    
    
15. “aesthetic isn't simply about good design for good design's sake.” Noah Kerner
    
    
16. “Design cannot rescue failed content.” Edward R. Tufte
    
    
17. “So that is the design process or the creative process. Start with a problem, forget the problem, the problem reveals itself or the solution reveals itself and then you reevaulate it. This is what you are doing all the time. ” Paul Rand
    
    
18. “Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.” Pierre Bonnard
    
    
19. “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
    
    
20. “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” Joe Soprano
    
    
21. “The dumbest mistake is viewing design as something you do at the end of the process to ‘tidy up’ the mess, as opposed to understanding it’s a ‘day one’ issue and part of everything.” Tom Peterson
    
    
    
    
     
22. “Technology over technique produces emotionless design.” Daniel Mall
    
    
23. “Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.” Edward R. Tufte
    
     
24. “Design works best when it gets out of the user’s way.” Neil Gajera
    
    
25. “To make my meal in a box taste better, I decided to tweak the logo, rather than the ingredients. ” Jarod Kintz
    
    
26. “Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance.” Jon Franklin
    
     
27. “To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.” Charles J. Givens
    
    
28. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Walt Disney
    
    
29. “Design is intelligence made visible.” Alina Wheeler
    
    
30. “Creativity is to think more efficiently.” Pierre Reverdy
    
    
31. “Designing a product is designing a relationship.” Steve Rogers
    
     
32. “Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humours.” George Santayana
    
    
33. “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
    
     
34. “The function of design is letting design function.” Micha Commeren
    
    
35. “An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” James Whistler
    
    
36. “I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Mark Twain
    
    
37. “Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.” Charles Eames
    
     
38. “Art is the only place you can do what you like. That’s freedom.” Paula Rego
    
    
39. “Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.” Tate Linden
    
     
40. “The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” Edwin H. Land
    
    
41. “Art is the lie that reveals the truth.” Pablo Picasso
    
    
    
    
    
42. “This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” Henry David Thoreau
    
    
43. “When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.” Walt Disney
    
    
44. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Ansel Adams
    
    
45. “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” G. K. Chesterton
    
    
46. “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” Mary Lou Cook
    
    
47. “Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.” Albert Camus
    
    
48. “Design is a fundamental human activity, relevant and useful to everyone” Maggie Macnab
    
    
49. “An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” Dr. Edwin Land
    
    
50. “You have to be interested in culture to design for it”. Lorraine Wild
    
    
51. “The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.” Nolan Bushnell
    
    
52. “There’s no shortcut for greatness”. Yasin Japardi
    
    
53. “In nature, light creates the colour. In the picture, colour creates the light.” Hans Hofmann
    
    
54. “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
    
    
55. “Accessible design is good design.” Steve Ballmer
    
    
56. “There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.” Paul Gauguin
    
    
57. “Whenever something is engineered as complex, it is designed to keep you simple.” Richard Diaz
    
     
58. “The more uninteresting the letter, the more useful it is to the typographer.” Piet Zwart
    
    
59. “Design is thinking made visual.” Saul Bass
    
    
60. “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
    
    
    
    
    
61. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs
    
    
62. “The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.” Massimo Vignelli
    
    
63. “Design is the contrast of the core of limitations therefore there are no boundaries. It is simply an interpretation of creativity.” Jenaiha Woods
    
    
64. “Every great design begins with an even better story.” Lorinda Mamo
    
    
65. “Real web designers write code. Always have, always will.” Jeffrey Zeldman
    
    
66. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Mark Twain
    
    
67. “If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” Henrik Fiskar
    
    
68. “Simple is good.” Jim Henson
    
    
69. “When you are stuck, walk away from the computer and draw. It will teach you how to see.” Gerard Huerta
    
    
70. “Everything is design. Everything!” Paul Rand

If you have an inspirational designing quote to add to our list of the best design quotes and sayings, please do so in the comments.