How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul Quotes

“It’s the feeling of being an eternal student that keeps this profession interesting.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“graphic design has a cultural and aesthetic value beyond the mere trumpeting of commercial messages.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“It’s clear that writing is a useful skill for any designer. Yet apart from a final-year dissertation or research paper, graphic designers are not encouraged to write at design school. This is odd, since words are the designer’s raw materials, much as coal is the raw material of the coal miner. Designers often say they can’t write. This is also odd, since many designers have a verbal facility for sharp phrases and economical expression. Most designers are better with words than they realize. This shyness with written language is partly caused by designers believing that they need to do everything visually. There’s a fear that they are betraying their design skills if they exhibit language skills. Yet the ability to handle text is a priceless attribute. Just think how often we struggle to make coherent typographic statements when forced to work with clumsy language: think of all those tortuous line breaks and bad configurations of type that could be eliminated with a few text edits. The ability to suggest and make text changes can often rescue work from second-rate status.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“This is the problem with branding: it has become more important than the thing it purports to brand.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“It took more than one or two years before we got contacted by real clients as a result of the publicity. Fame is mostly talk. You need to convince people over time that you can do real and strong work.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“The designer can create demand for a product or service so could also influence your client to do things better.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“When approximately 80% of the environmental impact is predetermined at the concept and design stage there is clearly action to take. As Kate Krebbs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) in the USA says, “Waste is a design flaw.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“I mention this to show that a corporation’s brand identity is dependent on dozens of factors beyond the control and experience of graphic designers. In truth, it is beyond the control of the advertising and PR wonks who talk the brand talk. There is an important role for designers in the creation of honest, functional, and clear depiction of any venture’s public-facing image, but when that becomes confused with the creation of what the brand gurus call brand values, problems ensue.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“By announcing what we are about to show, showing it, and then clamming up until the first questions are asked, we can help clients to deal with the new and shocking revelation we’ve placed in front of them. And remember, it’s always shocking—it’s never what they expected.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

“Paradoxically, the best way to attract good work is by doing good work.”
― Adrian Shaughnessy, How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul