Top 86 Quotes & Sayings by Paula Scher

Whatever you design[/make/build], use it to raise the expectations of what can be achieved

Really, everything is designed.

Be culturally literate, because if you don't have any understanding of the world you live in and the culture you live in, you're not going to express anything to anybody else.

Helvetica is the font of the Vietnam War.

Art has no purpose. It exists for its own sake.

Words have meaning, type has spirit.

Creativity has to do with what came before you immediately, not what came before you a long time ago.

Find out what the next thing is that you can push, that you can invent, that you can be ignorant about, that you can be arrogant about, that you can fail with, and that you can be a fool with. Because in the end, that's how you grow.

Stefan Sagmeister says that nobody innovates past forty-five, but I think he's wrong. I want to keep doing it.

I love that the level of mediocrity rises.

I think design, to a degree, is more generous and more humanistic than art, though great art can move us more.

Design always has a purpose.

Planning is design. As a designer what I tend to do, and what's different from being a painter, is that I interact with other people, and the people have things they need to have happen.

Marketing is a necessary part of the creative process.

All the little risks I took were sort of like all the apartments I had moved into: I was finding the right spot.

Identities are the beginning of everything. They are how something is recognized and understood. What could be better than that?

I think that it's a great time to be a designer.

I think that the ability of people to accept new things is growing, and that's good for all of us.

The idea of retirement seems to imply that you stop doing what you always did. Why would you do that? I don't get that.

The work needs to get out of your head and on to the table, and it needs to be done from the heart.

I like what I do. So why would I want to stop doing it?

Marketing is neither good nor evil.

Design exists to serve some purpose.

My work is play. And I play when I design. I even looked it up in the dictionary, to make sure that I actually do that, and the definition of “play,” number one, was “engaging in a childlike activity or endeavor,” and number two was “gambling.” And I realize I do both when I’m designing.

The goal of design is to raise the expectation of what design can be

It's through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.

Design always has a purpose, art has no purpose. That's really the difference between them. Do I think one is better than the other? Absolutely not. I think they both fulfill functions.

Having no purpose is the function of art, so somebody else can look at it and ask a question. Design is different - you're supposed to understand what's going on. You can be delighted by it, intrigued by it, but you're supposed to know it's a hot dog stand.

If I get up every day with the optimism that I have the capacity for growth, then that’s success for me.

What makes me say "wow" is usually something I haven't encountered, in a new way... something I haven't encountered before or something I have encountered that I see in a new way.

Great design is serious, not solemn

When I don't know all the rules I'm just wild.

When I paint I do a different thing than when I design. But both involve aesthetics, both involve thought, both involve planning.

I wasn't a very good illustrator so I became a designer.

I don't think of design as a job. I think of it as - and I hate to use this term for it - more of a calling. If you're just doing it because it's a nice job and you want to go home and do something else, then don't do it, because nobody needs what you're going to make.

What you do is look at yourself and find your own way to address the fact that the times have changed and that you have to pay attention. You can't be a designer and say, "Oh, this is timeless".

Your work gets destroyed by dumb people and it gets enhanced by smart people and it really doesn't have anything to do with marketing.

To me what really matters is that it shouldn't matter to you what day of the week it is.

I think that the notion of being creative is the notion that, inwardly, you assume that many things are possible. And that you can try these things and that something will happen.

I know that in my own work I'm able to do all kinds of things I never thought I'd be able to do.

What a designer does is he makes things possible that you didn't imagine could exist before, and it makes the world a better place. You know, it's a great thing to be doing. A fine artist does that, too, but they make the expression for themselves, not for others' use.

Marketing implies that you want a public to relate to your product - if it's a product - in a way that makes them want to use it. That is only good or evil in relationship to what the product actually does.

I do different things. I'm a designer. I'm a painter.

It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds.

The job of the designer is to make things understandable, usable, accessible, enjoyable... important to a public, that involves the public.

The best way to accomplish serious design ... is to be totally and completely unqualified for the job.

Planning involves considering how other people may use something.

It could be that going to work is better than being home. But you should never think of days as the weekend. It should all be the same, it should all be stuff you want to do. And when it isn't then you have to change it, and you have to think about how you change it.

Identity means "how do I get known? How do I expressmyself?" and that's generally what I'm helping somebody do. It may be three dimensional, it may be a public space, it may involve government,it may involve cultural institutions, it may involve corporations, it may involve editorial publications - it can be anything, really.

Creativity isn't about the advantage or disadvantage of a specific time or culture. Creativity is something that comes internally from a human being having a genuine mistrust of rules. And that may be the constant. It's almost like there's some rebellion in it.

All maps are distorted, they are not literal fact.

I love the big scale and immediate impact of posters. They're my favourite things to design.

Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?

Beige is the color of indecision.

I find that I'm at my least creative point when I am doing something that I've done in repetition and I know all the rules - I never break the rules because I know them.

Design is the art of planning, and it is the art of making things possible.

I'm most proud of the fact that I get to keep growing.

We become different people and we adapt to our environments, but that doesn't have anything to do with being creative.

Design really can be anything.

You need to be able to ride past the technology by understanding what it can do, who you are, and where you want to take it. You don't want technology to lead you; you want to lead it, but it's very hard to do that when you're in the middle of it.