[Adam Betts]

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Scott Adams

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." -Bill Cosby

[godzookie2k]

"Life is easy. Logos are hard."--art_director.

I still love that one.

[art_director]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
"Life is easy. Logos are hard."--art_director.

I still love that one.

i'm honored.

[art_director]

not a design quote but a wise word that hung on the wall of one of my mentors:

"it takes as much effort to build a toilet seat as it does a castle window. only one has a better view."

-------

i once sat in a room with that same wise old ad man. it was after a particularly bad presentation. it was my second job and i wanted the client to love our stuff. they didn't. i was pissed. i grumbled and swore and kicked at the air.

the wise old ad man said, " i always want you to remember that this is your life, you chose it. nobody made you go into advertising." i left his office with my head hung in shame.

two weeks later we had a similar meeting. this time the tables were turned and the wise old ad man was pissed. he let out the fury of the devil. it was ugly. when he finished i knew just what to say: "remember, this is your life, you chose it. nobody made you go into advertising."

without missing a beat the wise old ad man replied, "yeah, but i don't have forty years left."

this is a true story. it's one about a man i respect very much. he taught me more than all of the other teachers i ever had combined. this was one of the better lessons he shared with me.

this has been a reading from the book of d.t. (him, not me.)

[andi*pandi]

"If you can't make it good, make it big. If you can't make it big, make it red." -???

I just did a search on google for this to verify who said it first, and it's attributed to everyone and anyone. (70s New York photographers, various professors, someone in finland...) I could swear my prof said Paul Rand said it. Anyone know?

Anyway, I like the irony inherent in the phrasing, and it ran thru my head every time my first boss spec'd PMS 185 red.

My second design quote I like is actually from a professor: "Is your idea basket empty?" She meant are you being original, or are you relying on the same ol' design tricks.

Then there's the "it costs 5 cents to fix in copy, $50 to fix in design, $500 to fix at plates, but $5000 to fix on press" (approximate)

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by andi*pandi:
I could swear my prof said Paul Rand said it. Anyone know?

Paul Rand was your teacher?!? You're so damn lucky!

[Adam Betts]

"2 rules for success: #1 Don't tell everything you know.." -Unknown

[andi*pandi]

Paul Rand was your teacher?!? You're so damn lucky!

er, no. I could wish. My prof quoted him at us a lot though!

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by andi*pandi:
er, no. I could wish. My prof quoted him at us a lot though!

Oh opps, I should have read more carefully next time. I read your sentence as "my prof Paul Raud said.." instead of "my prof said Paul Raud said.."

Sorry

I'd like to meet him someday though. He know what he is talking about.

[zubro]

the "better" is the ennemy of the "good"
It works everyday! ;o)

[ultra-V]

I'd like to meet him someday though. He know what he is talking about.

Unfortunately there'll be no meeting of Mr. Rand, as he passed away in '96. But here's a little quote from him.

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 (Design, Form, and Chaos)

But my favorite is a recent cover of (now defunct) Critique magazine. It featured Thoreau's "Simplify, Simplify." With the first one striken. Brilliant.

[madchemist]

"there is no try"

yoda

[gadster]

"If you are going to pinch, pinch good."

[godzookie2k]

"You couldn't design your way out of a paper bag" -- one of my design proffessors

"Have you considered illustration?" Ellen Lupton


sorry, some of these were a little too positive.

[ajprice]

"Talent borrows, genius steals, sh*t copies" - The Designers Republic

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by ajprice:
"Talent borrows, genius steals, sh*t copies" - The Designers Republic

That's similar to something like this:

"Good artist copy. Great artist steal"

[dlefebvre]

"They always buy the one you don't like"

[splode]

Originally posted by dlefebvre:
"They always buy the one you don't like"

Jesus. Ain't that the truth. And they usually wanna add a shitload of text to it too.

splode

[pcp_ip]

"simple sells"

"good design is as much about putting things in as leaving things out."

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by dlefebvre:
"They always buy the one you don't like"

Shit! That's so true.

[spauldingg]

Originally posted by dlefebvre:
"They always buy the one you don't like"

So don't show them the ones you don't like.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by spauldingg:
So don't show them the ones you don't like.

Then they will complain that there are not enough choices

[KeyLimePi]

An illustrator once told me about a design class he took. On the first day the instructor said something like 'anyone who thinks design means drawing the word 'cat' with whiskers and a tail can leave now.' I always liked that.

I've since paraphrased that to 'never confuse designing and decorating.'

[spauldingg]

specifically about packaging but applies to more:

"It's not a beauty contest, it's a sales contest, and successful companies sell brands, not products."

less sucharda, Jr. Design North

[nica]

Photography related

==========
�A life without photography is like a life without God�

Bud Hines

==========
"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough,"

- Robert Capa (war photographer)

==========
�Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique,
who ask "how," while others of a more curious nature will ask "why."

Personally, I have always preferred
inspiration to information.�

Man Ray

==========
�My favorite thing is to go where I�ve never been.�

Diane Arbus

==========
"We look at a painting to know the painter;
it's his company we are after, not his skill."

- James McNeill Whistler

==========
"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it."

- Pentax advertisement

==================
"Life is like a good black and white photograph, there's black, there's white, and lots of shades in between."

- Karl Heiner

==================
"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's
ready to have somebody click the shutter."

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept."

"There are always two people in every picture:
the photographer and the viewer."

"You don't take a photograph, you make it."

"Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop"



- Ansel Adams

=================
"I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn."

-Pablo Picasso

=================



nica

[Macola]

"Quality.
Speed.
Low price.

Choose two."

[walrusjb]

"We look at a painting to know the painter;
it's his company we are after, not his skill."

- James McNeill Whistler

LOVE that one.

One of my favorites:
"The challenge is not in only representing things the way they are, but also the way they could be." (actual name unknown - it was one of the folks at NoFrontiere)


Edit:
Forgot to add the requisite advice from my old mentor: "As far as the public's concerned, you're only as good as the worst piece in your book."

[Nathan Adams]

Style = Fart

- Stefan Sagmeister

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Nathan Adams:
Style = Fart

- Stefan Sagmeister

Heh I'm not sure I understand that quote clearly. Care to explain?

[andi*pandi]

of course, that comes from the same designer who used closeup photos of his own balls as artwork, scratched designs into his own flesh for a photoshoot... a wacky wacky man.

[godzookie2k]

and so great.

[daftpig]

"Work slower. Do less work. Do it better."

-from his interview at http://www.visualogue.com/introduction/index_e.html (look under Speaker Interviews)

EDIT: "his" meaning Stefan Sagmeister's

[Webscreamer]

Read my Signature

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Webscreamer:
Getting ideas is like shaving: if you don't do it every day, you're a bum.

That's a good quote but I don't believe that it is the case for everyone. There's a such thing like natural skills

[Timo]

If yer stuck, change scale or change media.

[Webscreamer]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
That's a good quote but I don't believe that it is the case for everyone. There's a such thing like natural skills

I believe it doesn't mean "design" at all. I think it means just use your gOd d*mn head and think!

[skalie]

Originally posted by Macola:
"Quality.
Speed.
Low price.

Choose two."

Excellent, going to use that.

[Dogma]

Just remembered this one back from my old typography course.

Not so much a quote as a joke, but I reckon you'll appreciate.

Three Fonts walk into a bar,
the barman says -
"Get out! We don't serve your type in here!"

Had me in stictches for seconds!

[pcp_ip]

"You make the matzoh, I'll make the ads"

- George Lois

[Ryan Reid]

"Love it! Love it! Hang it on the wall!"
~ a design instructor whose name I have since forgotten...

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I am finished, if the solution isn't beautiful, I know it's wrong."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

The June issue of How had a plethora of great quotes.

[Superchicken]

"Good graphics go to heaven, bad graphics go everywhere else"- A quote from one of the graphic artists for tooth and nail records.