By

















As graphic designers, we sometimes fall prey to procrastination and we may even feel down at times. These graphic design quotes will hopefully lift your mood and encourage you to do what you do best.

So without further ado, here are the 99 motivational quotes that are sure to inspire you to do great things.

Graphic Design Quotes

1. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face – Eleanor Roosevelt Tweet

2. Fall down seven times, get up eight – Japanese Proverb Tweet



3. Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop – Jeffrey Zeldman Tweet

4. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication – Leonardo Da Vinci Tweet

5. Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent – Joe Sparano Tweet

6. Practice safe design; Use a concept – Petrula Vrontikis Tweet

7. Design is intelligence made visible – Alina Wheeler Tweet

8. Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future – Robert L. Peters Tweet

9. If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them – Bruce Lee Tweet

10. The worst logo applied well is better than the best logo applied poorly – Jacob Cass Tweet

11. I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it – Pablo Picasso Tweet

12. Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking – Chris Pullman Tweet

13. Supposing is good, but finding out is better – Mark Twain Tweet

14. Do not seek to change what has come before. Seek to create that which has not – David Airey Tweet

15. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover – Mark Twain Tweet

16. Owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer – Gabriel Von Satzger Tweet

17. When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what? – Sydney Harris Tweet

18. Technology over technique produces emotionless design – Daniel Mall Tweet

19. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great – Mark Twain Tweet

20. Be stimulated by rejection – Bob Gill Tweet

21. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means – Albert Einstein Tweet

22. An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it – Bill Bernbach Tweet

23. Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless – Tim Blixseth Tweet

24. Design isn’t finished until somebody is using it – Brenda Laurel Tweet

25. Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was – Richard L. Evans Tweet

26. Everything is designed. Few things are designed well – Brian Reed Tweet

27. Stop looking at yourself as a designer, and start thinking of yourself as a deliverer of ideas – Stle Melvr Tweet

28. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage – Seneca Tweet

29. Designing a product is designing a relationship – Steve Rogers Tweet

30. Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it – Joe Clark Tweet

31. Those who wish to sing, always find a song – Swedish Proverb Tweet

32. A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense – Bruno Munari Tweet

33. Have the passion, take the action & magic will happen – Bar Rafaeli Tweet

34. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got – Albert Einstein Tweet

35. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world – Anne Frank Tweet

36. Design should never say, Look at me. It should always say, Look at this – David Craib Tweet

37. Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, nor a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything – Napoleon Hill Tweet

38. Form follows function – Louis Sullivan Tweet

39. Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare – Japanese Proverb Tweet

40. Design is where science and art break even – Robin Mathew Tweet

41. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take – Wayne Gretzky Tweet

42. Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever – Lance Armstrong Tweet

43. Imagination is more important than knowledge – Albert Einstein Tweet

44. Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory – Alan Alda Tweet

45. When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given. – Barbara Sher Tweet

46. The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness – Massimo Vignelli Tweet

47. You have to be able to risk your identity for a bigger future than the present you are living – Fernando Flores Tweet

48. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook – William James Tweet

49. 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-Exupery Tweet

50. He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being – Paul Tillich Tweet

51. You must lose a fly to catch a trout – George Herbert Tweet

52. A well-designed text will seem weightless after a time; the initial feel of the book fades away as the mind becomes engrossed in the words – Mandy Brown Tweet

53. When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. – Cynthia Heimel Tweet

54. To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself – Soren Kierkegaard Tweet

55. There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence – Massimo Vignelli Tweet

56. Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at – Unknown Tweet

57. We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present – Thomas Edison Tweet

58. The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore – Vincent van Gogh Tweet

59. Good design is good business – Thomas J. Watson Jr Tweet

60. He who dares… Wins! – Del Boy Tweet

61. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter – Mark Twain Tweet

62. The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become – W. E. B. Du Bois Tweet

63. Many things difficult to design, prove easy to perform – Samuel Johnson Tweet

64. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them – Ralph Waldo Emerson Tweet

65. Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game – Winston Churchill Tweet

66. The opposite of play is not work — it’s depression – Stuart Brown Tweet

67. I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean – G.K. Chesterton Tweet

68. Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go – T. S. Eliot Tweet

69. If you never budge, don’t expect a push – Malcolm S. Forbes Tweet

70. Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy – Leisa Reichelt Tweet

71. Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out – James B. Conant Tweet

72. Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it – Pierre Bonnard Tweet

73. It is better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late – Marilyn Moats Kennedy Tweet

74. Success is not to be measured by the position someone has reached in life, but the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed – Booker T. Washington Tweet

75. If you want to stand out, don’t be different. Be outstanding. – Meredith West Tweet

76. Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order – Victor Papanek Tweet

77. The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety – Goethe Tweet

78. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will – Vince Lombardi Tweet

79. If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary – Jim Rohn Tweet

80. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure–which is: Try to please everybody – Herbert Bayard Swope Tweet

81. No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended – Adrian Forty Tweet

82. Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time – Josh Billings Tweet

83. If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up – J.M. Power Tweet

84. Design is easy. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead – Marty Neumeier Tweet

85. If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success – Malcolm X Tweet

86. Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing – Denis Waitley Tweet

87. Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase – Martin Luther King, Jr Tweet

88. What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals – Goethe Tweet

89. Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual – Edward Tufte Tweet

90. Stumbling is not falling – Malcolm X Tweet

91. Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor – Truman Capote Tweet

92. I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ – Muhammad Ali Tweet

93. There’s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk – Drew Barrymore Tweet

94. I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was – Muhammad Ali Tweet

95. The man who has no imagination has no wings – Muhammad Ali Tweet

96. I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it – Pablo Picasso Tweet

97. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed – Michael Jordan Tweet

98. Math is easy; design is hard – Jeffrey Veen Tweet

99. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe – Abraham Lincoln Tweet

Were these quotes motivational?

It’s taken me a good few days to get this collection of quotes ready, which includes adding the “Tweet” buttons as well as formatting the text. Hopefully you’ll feel inspired and slightly more uplifted after reading these creative, encouraging and motivational quotes.

However, if these quotes still aren’t motivating you, I highly recommend you read the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I’ve managed to considerably reduce the amount of time I spent procrastinating as well as increase my productivity after reading this book.

What are some of your favorite quotes? Let us know in the comments below.