The Best Design Quotes to Inspire Your Creativity
Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous quotes from our favorite interior, furniture, product, graphic and fashion designers, as well as architects, from a variety of sources.
“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris, Textile Designer
“For a house to be successful, the objects in it must communicate with one another, respond and balance one another.” - Andree Putman, Interior & Product Designer
“Form follows function – that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” - Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect & Interior Designer
“Designers and people, in general, are too attracted by ‘new’, but nothing ages more quickly than ‘newness’. All my objects reflect [a] marriage between past and present.” - Marcel Wanders, Designer & Art Director
“Rawness and refinement are not opposite ends of a luxurious spectrum. They are two complementary features with which to populate a luxe environment.” - Kelly Weartsler, Interior & Product Designer
“The home should be the treasure chest of living.” - Le Corbusier, Architect & Designer
“Luxury is when it seems flawless, when you reach the right balance between all elements. Understated theatricality – that is what my luxury is all about.” - Jean-Louis Deniot, Interior Designer
“I always put in one controversial item. It makes people talk.” - Dorothy Draper, Interior & Product Designer
“A designer has a duty to create timeless design. To be timeless you have to think really far into the future, not next year, not in two years but in 20 years minimum.” - Phillip Starck, Creator, Designer & Architect
“Underneath all I design lies the solid belief that beauty is a positive force.” - Barbara Barry, Interior & Product Designer
“Chairs are uniquely the best expression of design. They encompass more of the challenges by which I live and work than any other single component of furniture.” - Vladimir Kagan, Furniture Designer
“Furniture is needed for practical reasons, and because it must be there, it may as well be as pleasant as possible to look at, and in a less definable psychological way, comforting to the spirit.” - Edward J Wormley, Furniture Designer
“Learn to look not just with your eyes but with your heart. Find the things that connect with you. How else will you know how to design your home?” - Kelly Hoppen, Interior & Product Designer
“Design is not for philosophy, it’s for life” - Issey Miyake, Fashion Designer
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” - Robert L. Peters, Designer
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” - Joe Sparano, Graphic Designer
“Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance.” - John Franklin, Designer
“Nail the basics first, detail the details later.” - Chris Anderson, Designer
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of these two things.” Lindon Leader, Graphic Designer
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” - Charles Eames
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.” - Scott Adams
“Design is coming to grips with one's real lifestyle, one's real place in the world. Rooms should not be put together for show but to nourish one's wellbeing.” - Albert Hadley
“Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” - Edward de Bono