Functional Design Quotes

Ordnance Survey maps in all their shapes and sizes are the most beautiful manifestation of twentieth-century British functional design. Ever since I can remember, I have spent stolen moments, wasted evenings and secret hours studying the mystery and beauty of the Ordnance Survey maps of these islands. The concrete trig points that had originally been used in their creation became almost as powerful in mystical properties for me as standing stones. Bill Drummond, ~ Mike Parker

Interior design is a travesty of the architectural process and a frightening condemnation of the credulity, helplessness and gullibility of the most formidable consumers - the rich. ~ Stephen Bayley

The details are not the details. They make the design. ~ Charles Eames

Economic engineering is about the design and analysis of frameworks for achieving specific economic objectives. ~ Ben Bernanke

You don't sell a commodity, you sell joy, gaiety, excitement. You aim at people's hearts, not their minds. ~ Dorothy Draper

The main difference between writing JavaScript code like the average Joe (or Jill) and writing it like a JavaScript ninja is understanding JavaScript as a functional language. ~ Anonymous

A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life. ~ Richard Rogers

The exploitation agenda advocated by liberals is modeled after the dependency-inducing design of the drug dealer's business model: "We'll supply the first hit for free, and after that, you'll need us forever in order to survive." In order for the liberal scheme to succeed, all attempts at self-empowerment or individual initiative are to be met with fierce resistance and social sanction. ~ Angela McGlowan

Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator's plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities, a continuing creation in which the Divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life. ~ Kenneth R. Miller

Once you have the statement, it will design itself. ~ Bob Gill

Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very complex, then slicing elements away, until you reveal the very essence. ~ Christoph Niemann

Solemn Australians think that an interest in design is a superficial and trivial interest. This is actually an improvement, they used to think it effeminate and vaguely immoral. ~ Robin Boyd

People who build their own home tend to be very courageous. These people are curious about life. They're thinking about what it means to live in a house, rather than just buying a commodity and making it work. ~ Tom Kundig

There is a group of individuals who are radical jihadists. We need to call them by name. They believe it is OK to kill people in the name of their religion. It is not all of Islam. It is not all Muslims. But there is a subgroup who believe it is OK. In fact, it is their plan and design to kill people. ~ Tim Pawlenty

Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of this time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology. ~ Walter Isaacson

The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes. ~ John Masefield

... the poetic moment is a static one. It's watching through a window while the action happens elsewhere. And then the poet turns away from the window because the poem is done ... It cannot unflinchingly stare grief down. At some point, by necessity, or design, it must turn away. ~ Helen Humphreys

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Inheritance adds complexity to a program, and, as such, it's a dangerous technique. As Java guru Joshua Bloch says, "Design and document for inheritance, or prohibit it." If a class isn't designed to be inherited from, make its members non-virtual in C++, final in Java, or non-overridable in Microsoft Visual Basic so that you can't inherit from it. ~ Steve McConnell

I don't want to find myself designing for the press. ~ Tom Ford

Graphic design was largely about communication in an artistic or creative manner, much like writing is used to convey ideas. Many designers completely miss that aspect of the "art." Some are completely satisfied with just making things pretty, without taking the communication element into consideration. ~ Jeff Fisher

Google has withdrawn from China, arguing that it is no longer willing to design its search engine to block information that the Chinese government does not wish its citizens to have. In liberal democracies around the world, this decision has generally been greeted with enthusiasm. ~ Peter Singer

Looking through a child's eyes and knowing this was another planet, we decided to design the machines with eyes and bodies like animals, we also decided that this planet has two moons, and we decided that anything else we wanted to do was allowed. It was a new perspective to make the film. ~ Alex Abreu

The basic Roman ruin design is a pile of rocks with a little plaque saying "Roman Ruins" and a group of tourists frowning at it and wishing they were back at the hotel bar.. ~ Dave Barry

I assert that the art of sculpture, among all the arts connected with design, is at least seven times greater than any other, for the following reason: why, sir, a statue of true sculpture ought to have seven points of view, which ought all to boast equal excellence. ~ Benvenuto Cellini

Unlike the rest of nature, our mission in life is not etched in stone. We can choose our destiny, and we do, either by design or default, by taking control of our lives' or relinquishing it to others. ~ Glenn A. Maltais

There is a saying in entrepreneurship that your early employees are all commandos. Commandos are people who can do almost everything well: emails, strategy, code, design. ~ Adeo Ressi

Don't design your back yard from the outside looking in. Design from your window looking out. ~ Janet Macunovich

Accident is design / And design is accident / In a cloud of unknowing. ~ T. S. Eliot

I design a lot of things that I wear onstage, but I'm always looking for unique stuff. I like creative things, so anything I can find at a secondhand costume shop to a Helmut Lang store, it doesn't matter - just unique stuff. ~ Amy Lee

As much as we complain about other people, there is nothing worse for mental health than a social desert. ~ Charles Montgomery

I wrote the plot [for the Persepolis ]and Vincent [Paronnaud] and I wrote and discussed the shooting of the script. Vincent then took care of the production design, the actual shooting, and what was going on within each scene. It's very difficult, though, to draw a line between who did what. Because Vincent would say something, and I would add something, and at the end you have this film, yet no clear idea of who did what. ~ Marjane Satrapi

Devotion to the facts will always give the pleasures of recognition; adherence to the rules of design, the pleasures of order and certainty. ~ Kenneth Clark

It is, it seems to me, to stop one's eyes and understanding to maintain that there is no design in nature; and if there is design, there is an intelligent cause, there exists a God. People ~ Voltaire

Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain. ~ Carl Sagan

Thus, it is a political axiom that power follows property. But it is now a historical fact that the means of production are fast becoming the monopolistic property of Big Business and Big Government. Therefore, if you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible. Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you want to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society's merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government. ~ Aldous Huxley

If you hate my guts and have designs to hurt me, and I see you building a cannon aimed at my house, I am not going to wait for you to finish construction. ~ Walter E. Williams

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well
work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece
suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience. ~ Stephen Sondheim

The best design tool is a long eraser with a pencil at one end. ~ Marty Neumeier

Design may be the logical solution to a problem, but it's never a formula. Design grows out of clarity of purpose. ~ Millard Sheets

It's my belief that if we do not willingly embrace the challenge of Eden with all our hearts, then we will likely be forced to face challenges far far darker and more ominous in design. ~ Mango Wodzak

What else is chance but the rude stone which receives its life from the sculptor's hand? Providence gives us chance, and man must mould it to his own designs. ~ Friedrich Schiller

A collection of plants is not a landscape, any more than a list of choice words is a poem. The merit is in the design, not the material it is expressed in, and the best designs, like the best poems, make ordinary material significant by its arrangement. ~ Nan Fairbrother

Did I know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here one word and there another, patterns cut from several
pieces and scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and uncertainty, and to my
own governing method, ignorance. ~ Michel De Montaigne