Design has been around since the beginning of time and people love talking about the way it changes our lives and how it makes us feel and think. We love quotes on design – whether they are inspiring, funny or just so true.

We gathered together a great collection of 12 quotes on design that made us smile, think, and feel inspired about being a designer as well as a consumer of design. Share some of your favorites in the comments below!

“How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.” –Andrew Grove

“Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communications: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically related to the process.” –Paul Rand

“Design is more than just a few tricks to the eye. It’s a few tricks to the brain.” –Neville Brody

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” –Walt Disney

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” –Milton Glaser

“Where do new ideas come from? The answer is simple: differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions.” –Nicholas Negroponte

“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

“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” –Neville Brody

“We are not artists or poets. We are artisans and craftsmen. Our products solve problems. They do not hang on museum walls.” –Dan Lacivita

“The goal of a designer is to listen, observe, understand, sympathize, empathize, synthesize, and glean insights that enable him or her to ‘make the invisible visible.’” –Hillman Curtis

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs

“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” –Brian Reed

“Do we really need a simple definition of design or should we accept that design is too complex a matter to be summarized in less than a book?”
–Bryan Lawson

Which one is your favorite? Share in the comments below!