122 Famous Graphic Design Quotes for Motivation

In this article, you will find famous graphic design quotes that will inspire you to create beautiful banners, logos and websites.

Graphic Design Quotes about Attitude to Work

To take your professional skills to the next level, just read these inspiring quotes from famous graphic designers. Each of these quotes about graphic design will remind you about the challenges faced by famous people and their greatest triumphs, which will help you follow their footsteps.

• “The key to great ideas is not having them, it is executing them. And great ideas come from problems. As designers we call problems, briefs and we call reactions to problems, concepts.” - Kate Moross
• “I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” - Bob Gill
• “If you can properly define the problem, then you’ve already defined the solution as well.” - Chip Kidd
• “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

• “I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That’s my intent.” - Saul Bass
• “But I find that for myself, without exception, the more I deal with the work as something that is my own, as something that is personal, the more successful it is.” - Marian Bantjes
• “The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.” - Massimo Vignelli
• “I like to step into areas where I am afraid. Fear is a sign that I am going in the right direction.” - April Greiman
• “I think designers who aren’t selfish do really awful work.”- Paul Sahre

• “If you find an element of your interface requires instructions, then you need to redesign it.” - Dan Rubin
• “A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” - Martin LeBlanc
• “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” - Steve Jobs
• “You can’t do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously.” - Wim Crouwel
• “The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.” - Marty Neumeier

Graphic Design Quotes about Good Design Concept

If you doubt whether the design you created can be considered as a good one, then try to find the answer by reading these quotes. After years of experience, famous designers came up with their own definitions of a good and bad design.

• “There are three responses to a piece of design - yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” - Milton Glaser
• “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” - Frank Chimero
• “If no one hates it, no one really loves it.” - Jessica Walsh
• “The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.” - Paul Rand
• “I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” - Lindon Leader

• “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” - Joe Sparano
• “No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended.” - Adrian Forty
• “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• “Bad design shouts at you. Good design is the silent seller.” - Shane Meendering
• “To create a memorable design you need to start with a thought that’s worth remembering.” - Thomas Manss

• “Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.” - Freeman Thomas
• “Good art inspires; Good design motivates.” - Otl Aicher
• “People don’t use a product because of the great design; great design helps them use the product.” - Viran Anuradha Dayaratne
• “The alternative to good design is bad design, There is no such thing as no design.” - Adam Judge
• "Every great design begins with an even better story." - Lorinda Mamo

• "Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style." - Massimo Vignelli
• “Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” - Juan-Carlos Fernandez
• “Good design goes to heaven; bad design goes everywhere.” - Mieke Gerritzen
• “Good design’s not about what medium you’re working in. It’s about thinking hard about what you want to do and what you have to work with before you start.” - Susan Kare

Creative Graphic Design Quotes

These graphic design quotes will make your project presentation more creative. When it comes to finding inspiration for creating an unconventional design, they are no less motivational than graphic design books. Also, they are perfect for social network posts.

• “Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” - David Carson
• “Having guts always works out for me!” - Stefan Sagmeister
• “You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt… or in front of a piece of graphic design.” - Stefan Sagmeister
• “You can’t use up creativity the more you use the more you have.” - Maya Angelou
• “It’s through mistakes that you actually grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” - Paula Scher

• “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” - Jeffrey Zeldman
• “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas, worry about the day they stop.” - Jeffrey Zeldman
• “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” - Robert L. Peters
• “It’s art if it can’t be explained. It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation. It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.” - Wouter Stokkel
• “A good designer finds an elegant way to put everything you need on a page. A great designer convinces you half that shit is unnecessary.” - Mike Monteiro

• "Design is not a single object or dimension. Design is messy and complex." - Natasha Jen
• "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems." - Tim Brown
• “Aesthetic isn’t simply about good design for good design’s sake.” - Noah Kerner
• “There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” - Massimo Vignelli
• “Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.” - Valerie Pettis

Funny Graphic Design Quotes

If you’re looking for a fun idea for an Instagram post or a poster that you want to gift for graphic designers, take a look at these 21 quotes.

• “There’s something thrilling about working in complete darkness at 5am, like I’m fighting crime…even though all I’m really doing is kerning.” - Jennifer Daniel
• “If you’re having fonts problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 fonts but Comic Sans ain’t one.”
• “Walked into a very expensive restaurant, sat down, was handed a menu. COMIC SANS. Got up and left. Life is hard.” - Dustin Curtis
• “My next tattoo will be “Helvetica” written in Arial. When a woman corrects me on it, I will marry her.”

• “Standards are like sex; one mistake, and you’re stuck supporting it forever!” - Mark Pilgrim
• “I’m very font of you because you’re just my type”
• “There are no small projects, only small budgets.”
• “When you can select all the feathers of a morning sparrow without missing a single one, only then will you be able to be a true Photoshop master.”
• “Graphic designers find themselves in a role of visual dishwashers for the information Architects’ chefs” - Gunnar Swanson

• “Design is like sex. There is someone else involved, their needs are just as important as your own, and if everything goes right, both parties are happy in the end” - Colin Wright
• “A computer without Photoshop is like a dog with no legs. Sure is fun, but you can’t really do anything with it” - Benjamin Cavanagh
• “Never re-invent the wheel, unless you’re sure the client needn’t go anywhere” - Russell Bishop
• “The difference between a Designer and Developer when it comes to design skills, is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it” - Scott Hanselman
• “Every designer’s dirty little secret is that they copy other designer’s work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.” - Aaron Russell

• “Design is the application of intent - the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident.” - Robert L. Peters
• “Everybody’s a web designer until, you know, they actually try to do it.” - Gabe Boning
• “A graphic designer is a machine that turns coffee into beautiful, functional imagery.” - Lisa Manson
• “Great ideas, like babies, are often conceived after a few glasses of wine.” - Sharon Moore

Short Graphic Design Quotes

These 19 funny quotes from well-known digital artists, painters and designers briefly and accurately convey important thoughts. They can be added to social media posts, presentations or your portfolio.

• “Design cannot rescue failed content.” - Edward R. Tufte
• “Math is easy; design is hard.” - Jeffrey Veen
• “Practice safe design: Use a concept.” - Petrula Vrontikis
• “Art is never finished; only abandoned.” - Michelangelo
• “People ignore design that ignores people.” - Frank Chimero

• “A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.” - Bruno Munari
• “Think eight hours, work two hours.” - Mirko Ilić
• “I will be an artist or nothing.” - Eugene O’Neil
• “Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.” - Paola Antonelli
• “Design is a solution to a problem; art is a question to a problem.” - John Maeda

• "The function of design is letting design function." - Micha Commeren
• “The details are not the details. They make the design.” - Charles Eames
• "Everything is designed. Few things are designed well." - Brian Reed
• "Designers are meant to be loved, not to be understood." - Margaret Oscar

• "Design is a formal response to a strategic question." - Mariona Lopez
• “Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.” - Pierre Bonnard
• “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” - Pablo Picasso

Inspiring Graphic Design Quotes

To create a cool project, designers are looking for inspiration in little things, such as statements of famous people. Here you will find short inspirational design and photography quotes that will help you create a masterpiece.

• “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” - Pablo Picasso
• “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.” - Rumi
• “Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” - Bill Moyers
• “Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything you are willing to practice, you can do.” - Bob Ross
• "Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals." - David Ogilvy

• “It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.” - Jonathan Ive
• "Make it simple, but significant." - Don Draper
• "Have no fear of perfection - you’ll never reach it." - Salvador Dali
• “Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” - Issey Miyake

• “When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.” - William Gibson
• “The most important part of design is finding all the issues to be resolved. The rest are details.” - Soumeet Lanka
• “Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” - Orson Welles
• “Design should never say, Look at me. It should always say, Look at this.” - David Craib

Branding Graphic Design Quotes

If you often design logos in logo makers or are involved in creating a corporate identity, you will find inspiration in the graphic design quotes for business. There are also tips from entrepreneurs and experts on how to create effective branding.

• “A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.” - Lisa Gansky
• “If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.” - David Brier
• “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” - Howard Schultz
• “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” - Jeff Bezos
• “Identity is cause; brand is effect, and the strength of the former influences the strength of the latter.” - Larry Ackerman

• “Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception.” - Ashley Friedlein
• “Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way.” - Krista Neher
• “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” - Seth Godin
• “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” - Steve Forbes
• “Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.” - Marty Neumeier

Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with an interesting idea to create a design that will appeal to a client. Make sure to bookmark these famous graphic design quotes to get a motivation boost and find inspiration before the working day.