Thoughts on Design Quotes

“In essence, it is not what it looks like but what it does that defines a symbol.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“The designer does not, as a rule, begin with some preconceived idea. Rather, the idea is (or should be) the result of careful study and observation, and the design a product of that idea.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“Visual communications of any kind, whether persuasive or informative, from billboards to birth announcements, should be seen as the embodiment of form and function: the integration of the beautiful and the useful.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“Even if it is true that the average man seems most comfortable with the commonplace and familiar, it is equally true that catering to bad taste, which we so readily attribute to the average reader, merely perpetuates that mediocrity and denies the reader one of the most easily accessible means for esthetic development and eventual enjoyment.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“To distort the letters of the alphabet in “the style of” Chinese calligraphy (sometimes referred to as chop suey lettering), because the subject happens to deal with the Orient is to create the typographic equivalent of a corny illustration. To mimic a woodcut style of type to “go with” a woodcut; to use bold type to “harmonize with” heavy machinery, etc., is cliché-thinking. The designer is unaware of the exciting possibilities inherent in the contrast of picture and type matter. Thus, instead of combining a woodcut with a “woodcut style” of type (Neuland), a happier choice would be a more classical design (Caslon, Bodoni, or Helvetica) to achieve the element of surprise and to accentuate by contrast the form and character of both text and picture.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“The designer is primarily confronted with three classes of material:
a) the given material: product, copy, slogan, logotype, format,
media, production process; b) the formal material: space, contrast,
proportion, harmony, rhythm, repetition, line, mass, shape, color,
weight, volume, value, texture; c) the psychological material: visual
perception and optical illusion problems, the spectators’ instincts,
intuitions, and emotions as well as the designer’s own needs.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“Frequently, trite ideas or unimaginative translation of those ideas is the result not of poor subject matter but of poor interpretation of a problem.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design

“The visual statement, on the other hand, which seeks to express the essence of an idea, and which is based on function, fantasy, and analytic judgment, is likely to be not only unique but meaningful and memorable as well.”
― Paul Rand, Thoughts on Design