122+ Best Quotes For Your Graphic Design Business [2024]

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Updated: January 19th, 2023

Looking for inspirational quotes for your graphic design business?

Whether you’re looking for motivation, a witty instagram caption, or something to win over your team and customers, we have you covered.

We put together a list of 122+ best quotes for your graphic design business [2024].

Here they are:

Inspirational Quotes

“Entrepreneurship is 10% about business, 100% about people, and 1,000% about the self.” – Peter Kozodoy, founder of Stradeso
“My #1 tip to entrepreneurs is: get a mentor. It helps to have someone who’s been there and done that be able to tell you.” – Peter Kozodoy, founder of Stradeso
“Our customer acquisition relied solely on referrals. We had enough referrals coming to keep us busy. But because I was drowning in a sea of day-to-day tasks, that didn’t leave me time to set up a proper lead generation system.” – Marilyn Wo, founder of MeetAnders
“I must say we could have done better to grow faster in the early days, but on the flip side, our slow growth has helped us find a way to bake in fast and quality work into the process.” – Marilyn Wo, founder of MeetAnders
“Focusing on competition is a waste of time. It’s best to channel your energy and time into knowing your potential customers better and creating your own uniqueness to differentiate yourself from others.” – Marilyn Wo, founder of MeetAnders
“I grew up in a non-English speaking country, yet today the majority of my clients are English speaking. I had to practice to get to this point. Sometimes you will stumble, sometimes you will fail, but the important part to remember is to keep getting back up.” – SumanJung, founder of DesignPac
“Most people fail not because their dream was unachievable or unneeded, but because they fail to detail how they will get there. Be prepared for the unforeseen disasters and be prepared to take them one at a time.” – SumanJung, founder of DesignPac
“The most effective method we tried for our validation was initiating a conversation with every person who visited our website to understand more about what they were looking for and what would make Draftss an ideal provider for their needs.” – Junaid Ansari, founder of Draftss
“Productized services usually have high churn rates. Depending on the type of service you provide. Consider offering an exclusive annual subscription to clients with huge discounts for better lifetime value.” – Junaid Ansari, founder of Draftss
“Set a goal for yourself to email potential clients, start with once a week, then go to a few times a week, then even a few times a day. The more you communicate, the more people find out about you.” – Mimi Council, founder of Above 8000 Creative
“I worked this as a side hustle for about 6 months before quitting my full-time job and doing this full time. That was probably the hardest I ever worked in my life.” – Scott Tarcy, founder of caddesignhelp.com
“One thing I learned in some of the entrepreneurship books and podcasts I read was that you should try to create multiple streams of income.” – Scott Tarcy, founder of caddesignhelp.com
“When typography is on point, words become images.” - Shawn Lukas
“Design is thinking made visual.” - Saul Bass
“To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player, it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you’re starting out.” – Jessica Hische
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” - Paula Scher
“Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems.” – Tim Brown
“I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” – Bob Gill
“No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended.” - Adrian Forty
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” – Paula Sche
“Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” – David Ogilvy
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” – David Carson
“Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.” - Paola Antonelli
“The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.” – Massimo Vignelli
“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” - Milton Glaser
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” - Joe Sparano
“Color does not add a pleasant quality to design - it reinforces it.” - Pierre Bonnard
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs,
“If no one hates it, no one really loves it.” – Jessica Walsh
“If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” - Henrik Fisker

Professional Quotes

“You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt…or in front of a piece of graphic design.” – Stefan Sagmeister
“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” - Ron Swanson
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” - Jeffrey Zeldman
“People don’t use a product because of the great design; great design helps them use the product.” - Viran Anuradha Dayaratne
“Using a watermark on your work is like peeing on your belongings so no one will steal them.” - Thomas Amador
“Technology over technique produces emotionless design.” - Daniel Mall
“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” - Steve Jobs
“To create a memorable design you need to start with a thought that’s worth remembering.” - Thomas Manss
“If you can properly define the problem, then you’ve already defined the solution as well.” – Chip Kidd
“You can do a good ad without good typography, but you can’t do a great ad without good typography.” – Herb Lubalin
“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.” - Paul Rand
“I think designers who aren’t selfish do really awful work.” - Paul Sahre
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” - David Carson
“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” - Pablo Picasso
“I like to step into areas where I am afraid. Fear is a sign that I am going in the right direction.” – April Greiman
“Design is a solution to a problem; art is a question to a problem.” - John Maeda
“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.” – Hans Hoffmann
“Standards are like sex; one mistake, and you’re stuck supporting it forever!” - Mark Pilgrim
“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” – Paula Scher
“Good design’s not about what medium you’re working in. It’s about thinking hard about what you want to do and what you have to work with before you start.” – Susan Kare
“Design is intelligence made visible.” – Alina Wheeler
“A good designer finds an elegant way to put everything you need on a page. A great designer convinces you half that shit is unnecessary.” - Mike Monteiro
“Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” – David Carson
“The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.” - Douglas Martin
"But I find that for myself, without exception, the more I deal with the work as something that is my own, as something that is personal, the more successful it is.” – Marian Bantjes
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas, worry about the day they stop.” - Jeffrey Zeldman
“Design adds value faster than it adds costs.” – Joel Spolsky
“People ignore designs that ignore people.” – Frank Chimero
“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
“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” – Milton Glaser

Life Quotes

“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” – Frank Chimero
“Design is a formal response to a strategic question.” – Mariona Lopez
“Do not seek praise, seek criticism.” - Paul Arden
“Creativity is nothing but a mind set free.” – Torrie T. Asai
“Design has to work, art does not.” - Donald Judd
“If you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients.” – Michael Bierut
“Everybody’s a web designer until, you know, they actually try to do it.” - Gabe Boning
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Design is like a mom, nobody notices when she’s around, but everybody misses her when she’s not.” - Santiago Borray
“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.” – Massimo Vignelli
“A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” - Martin LeBlanc
“Live in the leading—the spaces in between the rules.” – Stefan Mumaw
“Information is only useful when it can be understood.” – Muriel Cooper
“It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.” - Jonathan Ive
“Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” – Ray Kroc
“Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” - Frank Chimero
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” – Brian Reed
“Great ideas, like babies, are often conceived after a few glasses of wine.” - Sharon Moore
“Good art inspires; Good design motivates.” - Otl Aicher
“The key to great ideas is not having them, it is executing them. And great ideas come from problems. As designers we call problems briefs, and we call reactions to problems concepts.” – Kate Moross
“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” – Neville Brody
“Good design is honest.” - Dieter Rams
“The function of design is letting design function.” – Micha Commeren
“Good design is good business.” – Thomas Watson
“Creativity is nothing but the way to solve new problems.” – Diana Santos
“Art is anything you can get away with.” – Marshall McLuhan
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” – Salvador Dali
“You can do a good ad without good typography, but you can’t do a great ad without good typography.” – Herb Lubalin
“Design is thinking made visual.” – Saul Bass

Positive Quotes

“Get rid of everything that is not essential to making a point.” – Christoph Niemann,
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” - Charles Eames
“A graphic designer is a machine that turns coffee into beautiful, functional imagery.” - Lisa Manson
“The key to great ideas is not having them, it is executing them. And great ideas come from problems. As designers we call problems, briefs and we call reactions to problems, concepts.” – Kate Moross
“There are three responses to a piece of design: yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” – Milton Glaser
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Design adds value faster than it adds costs.” - Thomas C. Gale
“If you find an element of your interface requires instructions, then you need to redesign it.” - Dan Rubin
“Design transcends agenda. It speaks to the politics of optimism.” – Paul Bennett
“Make it simple, but significant.” – Don Draper
“The role of the designer is that of a good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.” – Charles Eames
“Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.” - Freeman Thomas
“Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for design to breathe.” – Wojciech Zieliński
“Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” - Bill Moyers
“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” - Salvador Dalí
“Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks.” – Irene Au
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” - James Goldsmith
“It’s art if it can’t be explained. It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation. It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.” - Wouter Stokkel
“The alternative to good design is always bad design. There is no such thing as no design.” – Adam Judge
“What the visionaries had in common was a particular love of craft and a desire to play.” – Petrula Vrontikis
“I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That’s my intent.” – Saul Bass
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” – Robert L. Peters
“Design is the body language of your marketing. Don’t slouch.” - Mark King
“Design is as much a matter of finding problems as it is solving them.” - Bryan Lawson
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” - Robert L. Peters
“Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything you are willing to practice, you can do.” - Bob Ross
“Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.” - Despair Poster
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.” – Ellen Lupton
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” – Lindon Leader
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” – Lindon Leader

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Starting A Graphic Design Business: Everything You Need To Know

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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