Hector > Hector's Quotes

“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.”
― Paul Rand

“Everything is design. Everything!”
― Paul Rand

“Don't try to be original; just try to be good.”
― Paul Rand

“The artist is a collector of things imaginary or real. He accumulates things with the same enthusiasm that a little boy stuffs his pockets. The scrap heap and the museum are embraced with equal curiosity. He takes snapshots, makes notes and records impressions on tablecloths or newspapers, on backs of envelopes or matchbooks. Why one thing and not another is part of the mystery, but he is omnivorous.”
― Paul Rand, Paul Rand: A Designer's Art

“Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions, there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.”
― Paul Rand

“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.”
― Paul Rand

“All art is relationships, all art. Design is relationships. Design in a relationship between form and content... Your glasses are round. Your collar is diagonal. These are relationships. Your mouth is an oval. Your nose is a triangle - this is what design is.”
― Paul Rand

“Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble
for novelty. Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing
effects without substance. Form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form.”
― Paul Rand

“In essence, it is not what it looks like but what it does that defines a symbol.”
― 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

“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

“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