All Quotes

# design50 quotes

DESIGN

Every piece of software we build is an opinion about how people should work.

designphilosophyStewart Butterfield, interview

Keep the product simple. If your grandmother can't use it, you've failed.

designproductEric Yuan, interview

We want to make software that feels like a craft, not a factory.

designphilosophyIvan Zhao, interview

The best tools disappear. You don't think about the tool — you think about the work.

designproductIvan Zhao, podcast

Design is a team sport. The old model of a designer working alone in a downloaded app and then emailing a PNG was broken from day one.

collaborationdesignDylan Field, Config keynote 2022

The future of design is empowering everyone to design. Not making designers more powerful — making everyone a designer.

democratizationdesignMelanie Perkins, Canva Create keynote 2023

Our vehicle weighs 1,200 pounds and goes 25 miles per hour. If something goes wrong, you get a dented fender, not a funeral.

designengineeringDave Ferguson on Nuro's safety advantage, 2021

ADP was founded in 1949. Their software looks like it. We were founded in 2011 and we build for people who expect software to actually be pleasant to use.

competitiondesignGusto marketing positioning, widely cited

Our customer wants one outfit that works from the gym to the office to dinner. That's not laziness — that's how people actually live. We design for real life, not Instagram.

designlifestyleJoe Kudla, Retail Dive interview, 2022

The branding was intentional. Millennial pink. Clean design. No weird stock photos of old men running on beaches. We made healthcare look like a lifestyle brand. That was the unlock.

brandingdesignFast Company Interview, 2019

Our products won every design award. Every one. Red Dot. IDEA. IF. The products were beautiful. The unit economics were hideous.

designfailureVanity Fair Article, 2017

We made the Jambox — a Bluetooth speaker so beautifully designed that people put it on their coffee tables like art. We were a hardware company that cared about aesthetics. That was rare in 2010.

designhardwareFast Company Interview, 2012

The coral card was a branding accident that became our identity. We picked it because it was different from every other bank card in your wallet. Turns out people love showing it off.

brandingdesignTechCrunch Interview, 2018

We do not have a screen on purpose. A screen turns a health device into a notification device. We want you looking at your body, not your wrist.

designphilosophyPodcast, 2021

If your grandma can't use your blockchain, you haven't solved the user experience problem. Human-readable account names instead of 42-character hex addresses — that was our first design decision, and everything else followed.

Every great product tells a story. Airbnb is not about a place to sleep. It is about belonging somewhere.

The two-minute timer forces authenticity. You cannot plan, pose, or filter. That constraint is the entire product.

Great software is opinionated. If you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one.

Keyboard shortcuts are not a feature. They are a philosophy. Speed is a design principle.

No-code does not mean no skill. It means the skill is design thinking not semicolons.

The web should be built by designers not just developers. Both perspectives make it better.

The best technology becomes invisible. You should not think about the 3D scan. You should think about the building.

I did not go to business school. I went to art school. That is why my vacuums look different from everyone else's.

Engineering is the most creative profession in the world. Artists make things that look good. Engineers make things that work.

I studied photography in Florence. That semester shaped Instagram more than any computer science class ever could.

Uber is efficiency with elegance on top.

In the casino business, the building IS the product. Every detail matters.

Safety isn't a feature we add later. It's built into the architecture from day one.

The best developer tools disappear into the workflow. You shouldn't notice them — you should notice their absence.

HR software shouldn't feel like punishment. People actually like using Lattice. That's rare in our category.

Maps should be customizable, private, and beautiful. Google gives you one option. We give you infinite options.

Kate Hudson isn't just a spokesperson. She designs with us. That authenticity shows in every product.

Design is not about decoration. It's about solving problems beautifully.

The best products make complex things simple. The worst products make simple things complex.

designproductInterview, 2020

Aave means ghost in Finnish. We wanted to build something invisible — infrastructure so good you don't notice it.

brandingdesignInterview, 2020

Design isn’t decoration. It’s how it works. The best founders understand this. The rest add a nice font and call it design.

designfoundersAdobe event, 2019

The first mile of any product — the signup, the onboarding, the first five minutes — determines whether a billion people will use it.

designonboardingMedium post, 2018

The best defense technology should make wars shorter and less deadly. That’s not a contradiction — it’s a design requirement.

defensedesignCongressional testimony, 2023

My style is based on a softness that complements attitude and body, making people stand out and highlighting personality over clothing.

designELLE, 2025

Enterprise software does not have to be ugly. It does not have to be painful. We just accepted that it was for too long.

I worked at Blizzard making World of Warcraft. The principles are the same: create a world people want to come back to every day. Except on Zwift, you burn calories.

I tested 41 shades of blue. People thought I was crazy. We saw a measurable improvement in engagement.

datadesignInterview

A beautiful building is not an indulgence. It is an investment that pays you back through the quality of the people it attracts.

designlong-term-thinkingSOHO China Annual Report Interview, 2012

If you have never had to think about whether a system was built for people like you, that is a privilege worth examining.

designequityPublic lecture, 2019

Fashion is all about last season, but style is about right now. And right now should be timeless.

designfashionVogue interview, 2012

I have always loved brands with something to say. If a brand doesn't have a point of view, why does it exist?

brand-buildingdesignBusiness of Fashion interview, 2015

I believe in ugliness. Ugly is interesting. Beautiful is boring.

contrariandesignInterview, 2018

My job is to investigate mystery. If the mystery disappears, the job is over.

creativitydesignInterview, 2012

I don't do trends. I do style. There's a difference.

branddesignVogue interview, 2007

At the end of the day, it has to be functional and beautiful.

designdevelopmentHome & Decor