Discipline without interpretation is boring, but interpretation without discipline doesn’t stand up.
Trendiness is trash because next year, when it is over, it becomes trash right away.
Everything is the product of the mind. Everything that is ugly is the product of ugly minds. Beauty is a by-product of intellectual elegance
Theory is what generates a product. Criticism is what controls it. History is what gives you the possibility of evaluating your work.
For education in design, three things are important: history, theory and criticism.
Design, like music, works within a framework. Interpret established rules and solve the problem. It’s about how well you play the instrument
A designer’s moral imperative should be to reduce the ugliness around us, and replace them with decent, unselfish designs.
The search for objectivity is more important to us than subjectivity. Our work is more rigorous and primary as a result.
An object has style if the intelligence that generated it had style. I doubt that I have ever met or seen an ignorant person with style.
When you have discipline, you don’t have to look for beauty – it comes out from the clarity of information itself. That is why we use grids.
Art does not have any limits, but design should.
Our job is to spread the notion of quality as much as possible. That is our mission.
If modernism is treated as style, it is modern no more. Modern has no style. Modern is a discipline. Modern is an attitude; a way of being.
Our approach to graphic design has always been the organization of information. We don’t think of design as art. Design is just design.
Graphic design suffers when discipline has been abandoned in favor of the random.
Style is transitory. Attitude is permanent.
A book with square pictures will be square, a book with rectangular pictures will be rectangular. The content determines the container.
Helvetica is our ultimate typeface: objective, powerful, and delicate according to weight. But above all it is timeless and universal.
The role of fashion is temporary. The role of clothing is permanence. We designed clothing because we are only interested in permanence.
A great client brings more great clients; conversely, a bad one brings worse ones.
