As a graphic designer, there are times that you may hit a wall and aren’t able to come up with creative ideas. It happens…Unfortunately, sometimes it come at the worst possible time. Like right before a deadline.
Fortunately, as designers, we have many avenues to motivate and energize us. We can take a walk, grab a coffee, or play ping pong. The list goes on. Sometimes you may need to take unconventional measures to break a creative block. Sometimes you need to reach into the past and surface ideas and concepts from past and current creators at their peak.
Below are 30 inspirational quotes to get those creative juices flowing.
“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.”
— Milton Glaser
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
— Steve Jobs
“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.”
— Massimo Vignelli
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.“
— Paula Scher
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.”
— Ellen Lupton
“The designer does not begin with some preconceived idea. Rather, the idea is the result of careful study and observation, and the design proctologist’s of that idea.”
— Paul Rand
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”
— John Maeda
“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
— Pablo Picasso
“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.”
— Frank Chimero
“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.”
— Paul Rand
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
— Albert Einstein
“Everything is design. Everything!”
— Paul Rand
“Graphic design is the fiction that anticipates the fact.”
— Michael Bierut
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
— Steve Jobs
“A logo doesn’t sell (directly), it identifies.”
— Paul Rand
“The role of the designer is that of a good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.”
— Charles Eames
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.”
— David Carson
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
“People ignore designs that ignore people.”
— Frank Chimero
“Design is thinking made visual.”
— Saul Bass
“Good design is honest.”
— Dieter Rams
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“If you do it right, it will last forever.”
— Massimo Vignelli
“Design is a solution to a problem; art is a question to a problem.”
— John Maeda
“Simplicity, wit, and good typography.”
— Michael Bierut
“Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.”
— Elon Musk
“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.”
— Massimo Vignelli
“Design isn’t crafting a beautiful textured button with breathtaking animation. It’s figuring out if there’s a way to get rid of the button altogether.”
— Edward Tufte
“Do good work for good people.”
— Aaron Draplin