Graphic designers are known for their awesome designs. We are surrounded by such amazing designs everywhere, be it our home, office, college, buildings, architecture, etc.

Apart from creating designs, graphic designers are also known for their quotes. These quotes can be inspirational, motivational, creative and at times funny as well! Today, we bring to you top and best Graphic Design Quotes

Famous Graphic Design Quotes

These are the some of the great quotes and sayings by the famous graphic designers of our time.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Da Vinci
“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” – Milton Glaser
“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
“You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt… or in front of a piece of graphic design.” – Stefan Sagmeister
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” – David Carson
“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
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” – Paula Scher
“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
“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-Exupéry
“Never fall in love with an idea. They’re whores. If the one you’re with isn’t doing the job, there’s always, always, always another.” – Chip Kidd
“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
“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” – Neville Brody
“Socrates said, “Know thyself.” I say, “Know thy users.” And guess what? They don’t think like you do.” – Joshua Brewer
“I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That’s my intent.” – Saul Bass
“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” – Frank Chimero
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” – Lindon Leader
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” – Jeffrey Zeldman
“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
“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” – Rachel Zoe
“Art is never finished; only abandoned.” – Michelangelo

Inspirational Graphic Design Quotes

These graphic designer quotes and sayings will definitely inspire and motivate you.

“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” – Brian Reed
“If you can design one thing, you can design everything.” – Massimo Vignelli
“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” – Paul Rand
“Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” – Issey Miyake
“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.” – Zig Ziglar
“Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” – Juan-Carlos Fernandez.
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” – Robert L. Peters
“Whenever something is engineered as complex, it is designed to keep you simple.” – Richard Diaz
“When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.” – William Gibson, Zero History
“Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.” – Ralph Caplan
“The most important part of design is finding all the issues to be resolved. The rest are details.” – Soumeet Lanka
“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.” – Hans Hofmann
“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
“Design is where science and art break even.” – Robin Mathew
“Aesthetic isn’t simply about good design for good design’s sake.” – Noah Kerner
“Design cannot rescue failed content.” – Edward R. Tufte
“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 reevaluate it. This is what you are doing all the time. ” – Paul Rand
“Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it.” – Pierre Bonnard
“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
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” – Joe Soprano
“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
“Technology over technique produces emotionless design.” – Daniel Mall
“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
“Design works best when it gets out of the user’s way.” – Neil Gajera
“To make my meal in a box taste better, I decided to tweak the logo, rather than the ingredients. ” – Jarod Kintz
“Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance.” – Jon Franklin
“To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.” – Charles J. Givens
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
“Design is intelligence made visible.” – Alina Wheeler
“Creativity is to think more efficiently.” – Pierre Reverdy
“Designing a product is designing a relationship.” – Steve Rogers
“Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humours.” – George Santayana
“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
“The function of design is letting design function.” – Micha Commeren
“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” – James Whistler
“I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” – Mark Twain
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.” – Charles Eames
“Art is the only place you can do what you like. That’s freedom.” – Paula Rego
“Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.” – Tate Linden
“The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin H. Land
“Art is the lie that reveals the truth.” – Pablo Picasso
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau
“When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.” – Walt Disney
“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – G. K. Chesterton
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” – Mary Lou Cook
“Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.” – Albert Camus
“Design is a fundamental human activity, relevant and useful to everyone” – Maggie Macnab
“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Dr. Edwin Land
“You have to be interested in culture to design for it”. – Lorraine Wild
“The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.” – Nolan Bushnell
“There’s no shortcut for greatness”. – Yasin Japardi
“In nature, light creates the colour. In the picture, colour creates the light.” – Hans Hofmann
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Accessible design is good design.” – Steve Ballmer
“There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.” – Paul Gauguin
“Whenever something is engineered as complex, it is designed to keep you simple.” – Richard Diaz
“The more uninteresting the letter, the more useful it is to the typographer.” – Piet Zwart
“Design is thinking made visual.” – Saul Bass
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” – Douglas Adams
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.” – Massimo Vignelli
“Design is the contrast of the core of limitations therefore there are no boundaries. It is simply an interpretation of creativity.” – Jenaiha Woods
“Every great design begins with an even better story.” – Lorinda Mamo
“Real web designers write code. Always have, always will.” – Jeffrey Zeldman
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
“If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” – Henrik Fiskar
“Simple is good.” – Jim Henson
“When you are stuck, walk away from the computer and draw. It will teach you how to see.” – Gerard Huerta
“Everything is design. Everything!” – Paul Rand

Funny Graphic Design Quotes

These graphic design phrases are quite funny and will certainly tickle that funny bone!

“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
“My next tattoo will be “Helvetica” written in Arial. When a woman corrects me on it, I will marry her.” – Anonymous
“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.” – Anonymous
“If you’re having fonts problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 fonts but Comic Sans ain’t one.” – Anonymous
“I’m very font of you because you’re just my type” – Anonymous
“Things aren’t always #000000 and #FFFFFF” – Anonymous
“Walked into a very expensive restaurant, sat down, was handed a menu. COMIC SANS. Got up and left. Life is hard.” – Dustin Curtis
“Every time you stretch a font, somewhere, a designer cries.” – Anonymous
“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
“Art is like masturbation. It is selfish and introverted and done for you and you alone. 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
“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
“Graphic designers find themselves in a role of visual dishwashers for the information Architects’ chefs” – Gunnar Swanson
“My rates are as follows:$50 per hour.$75 per hour – if you watch,$100 per hour if you help” – Anonymous
“Never re-invent the wheel, unless you’re sure the client needn’t go anywhere” – Russell Bishop
“The client may be king but he’s not the art director” – Von R. Glitschka
“Math is easy; design is hard.” – Jeffrey Veen
Good design goes to heaven; bad design goes everywhere.” – Mieke Gerritzen

Creative Graphic Design Quotes

A lot of designers have come up with very creative graphic design sayings. We have handpicked a few of them for you.

“There are no small projects, only small budgets.” – Anonymous
“Bring a designer a problem, not a solution.” – Anonymous
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.” – Ellen Lupton
“You can’t do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously.” – Wim Crouwel
“Practice safe design: Use a concept.” – Petrula Vrontikis
“Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” – Orson Welles
“Art is never finished; only abandoned.” – Michelangelo
“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” – Massimo Vignelli
“People ignore design that ignores people.” – Frank Chimero
“I’ve always held to the belief that the practice of creating compelling graphic design occurs not by employing the principles of a democracy, but rather, that of a monarchy.” – Thomas Vasquez
“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
“The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.” – Marty Neumeier
“Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It’s messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.” – Scott Stevenson
“A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.” – Bruno Munari
“Design is the application of intent – the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident.” – Robert L. Peters
“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
“Design should never say, Look at me. It should always say, Look at this.” – David Craib
“Dont design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.” – Leisa Reichelt
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.” – Ellen Lupton
“The design process, at its best, integrates the aspirations of art, science, and culture.” – Jeff Smith
“Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.” – Edward Tufte
“Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order.” – Victor Papanek
“Design trends online change more often than the wind, and slightly less often than my socks.” – Suleiman Leadbitter
“Design is easy. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead.” – Marty Neumier
“Practice safe design: Use a concept” – Petrula Vrontikis
“I love the comment, “You must love designing for a living.” At that point I usually start to laugh or break into uncontrollable tears” – Andrew Lewis
“It’s art if 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
“Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist after you grow up” – Pablo Picasso
“Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity” – John Carmack
“Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended” – Raymond Loewy
“In design man becomes what he is. Animals have language and perception as well, but they do not design” – Otl Aicher
“Designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organising and manipulating of words and pictures” – Jeffrey Veen
“Design from the spine and you’ll be fine” – Carl Heaton
“Graphic designers are idea embalmers. Loving undertakers preserving bits of data like so many butterflies pinned to felt in a jewel box” – Paul Saffo
“To create a memorable design you need to start with a thought that’s worth remembering” – Thomas Manss
“Graphic designers are, by and large selfish and spoiled. They stubbornly control and individually design things that are generally smaller than them, perfecting to a level appreciated only by people like them. They don’t share and play well with others” – Wayne Hunt
“A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures” – Ben Schneiderman
“Remember it takes a lot of shit, to create a beautiful flower” – Jacob Cass
“Design is a good idea” – Emigre
“If you know how to use a pencil to draw, you could draw anything. Now apply that to everything in life” – Justin Durban
“We aren’t designing photocopies of web pages, we’re designing web pages” – Andy Clarke
“Everyone is an artist” – Joseph Beuys
“Marketing without design is lifeless, and design without marketing is mute” – Von R. Glitschka
“Without good design it is easy to miss the point” – Bjarni Wark
“Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking” – Chris Pullman
“In the design process, my gut instinct is my best critic. I just wished I would always listen to it!” – Bryan Tamayo
“Design has become the cover for unnecessary consumption” – Peter Saville
“Design is creativity with strategy” – Rob Curedale
“Stop looking at yourself as a designer and start thinking of yourself as a deliverer of ideas” – Stle Melvr
“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist” – Salvador Dali
“Good ideas turn into good designs fairly quickly. If you catch yourself fiddling too much with colors, borders and treatments to bring a design together, chances are the problem lies somewhere deeper” – Ryan Singer
“We can’t just design an item that looks great. We also have to anticipate how it is boxed up, distributed, and shipped, as well as whether or not a seventeen-year-old kid with a summer job can stock it on the store shelf without ruining it” – Robin Perkins
“Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus” – David Hockney
“Making good design is easy. It’s polishing the half-assed stuff that takes time” – Stefan G. Bucher
“Whether we like it or not, our legacy as designers is ugly. We’re largely responsible for fueling a culture of consumption” – Eric Karjalouto
“Design is like a mom, nobody notices when she’s around, but everybody misses her when she’s not” – Santiago Borray
“A designer who gives her art away, makes no pay, A designer who keeps her art to herself, makes no friends” – Amber Seree Allen
“Good design means never having to say “Click Here.” “- Shawn Leslie
“Being a graphic designer gets you used to rejection of your brilliance. So it’s good practice for dating” – Heather Phillips
“Inspiration the seed. Design but the flower” – Michael Langham
“Designers are meant to be loved, not to be understood” – Fabien Barral
“You can’t do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously” – Wim Crouwal

I hope you liked our compilation of top and the best graphic design quotes, sayings and phrases. If you have any more to add to this list, do let us know in the comments section below.