Karla Burns

I like to collect quotations, my chalk wall is thick and fast becoming a shrine to inspirational quotes I have collected, from books and websites. I draw immense inspiration from words of others, especially when struggling with design problems and solutions, it is very inspiring to read the words of Paul Rand or Milton Glaser, who have the words to sum up that situation and carry you through. It is inspiring to know that fellow designers have been in the same situation and these are the words that carried them through, so here are a few quotes that I adore and I hope that you too can find inspiration in them.

“Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost.”
Samuel Butler

“Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better.”
John Updike

“I am still learning.”
Michelangelo

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.”
Leo Burnett

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.”
Albert Einstein

“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.”
Paul Rand (I can relate to this)

“Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.”
Stella Adler

“I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”
Orson Welles

“When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls.”
Ted Grant

“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.”
Jamie Paolinetti

“Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus.”
David Hockney

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep”
Scott Adam

“Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humours.”
George Santayana

A great quote for students:

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
Pablo Picasso

“The first mistake of Art is to assume that it’s serious.”
Lester Bangs

“Colour does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it.”
Pierre Bonnard

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.“
Bruce Feirstein

“Creative without strategy is called ‘art’. Creative with strategy is called ‘advertising’.”
Jef I. Richards

“Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.”
Freeman Thomas

Personally I gain so much inspiration from the truth behind this quote:

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person’s brow.”
Charles Brower

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”
Dr Edwin Land

Feel free to add to this!