When looking for inspiration it can be automatic to look at web sites, posters, or whatever else you are planning to design yourself. However, sometimes it is best to step outside of the box and get some inspiration from the outside world.

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“Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something,” Paola Antonelli.

The name of Leonardo da Vinci will be invoked by artists to prove that only a great artist can be a great technician. The name of Leonardo da Vinci will be invoked by technicians to prove that only a great technician can be a great artist,” Alex Gross.

“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come,” Victor Hugo.

“Woe to him in a nonconformist clique who does not conform to nonconformity,” Eric Hoffer.

“Knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do,” Lucille Ball.

“Art persists, it timelessly continues,” Oscar Wilde.

“When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either,” Leo Burnett.

“When the destroyer comes, his first act will be to destroy all of the books,” Thomas More.

“I believe consistency and orthogonality are tools of design, not the primary goal in design,” Yukihiro Matsumoto.

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse,” Winston Churchill.

“The studio, a room to which the artist consigns himself for life, is naturally important, not only as workplace, but as a source of inspiration. And it usually manages, one way or another, to turn up in his product,” Grace Glueck.

“Good design makes a product useful,” Dieter Rams.

“Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable: what it is or what it means can never be said,” George Santayana.

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious,” Oscar Wilde.

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them,” Ray Douglas Bradbury.

“That story was the only thing I have ever done which cost me absolutely no pains at all. Usually I compose only with great difficulty and endless rewriting. I woke up one day (more than 2 years ago) with that odd thing virtually complete in my head. It took only a few hours to get down, and then copy out,” J.R.R. Tolkien on ‘Leaf by Niggle’.

“Fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies. The Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness,” J.R.R. Tolkien.

“If the world were clear, art would not exist,” Albert Camus.

“Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department,” Tom Peters.

“O, had I but followed the arts!” William Shakespeare.

“I think it’s really important to design things with a kind of personality,” Marc Newson.

“I prefer design by experts – by people who know what they are doing,” Donald Norman.

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools,” Douglas Adams.

“Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone,” Donald Norman.

“Because my spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places,” A.A. Milne (“Winnie the Pooh”).

One of the common discussion topics among designers is beauty vs. function. Is it the content that drives the design or does the design drive the content? Is content king or is it the design? Can good content overcome bad design and vice-versa?

It is easy to forget that there is no reason that attractiveness and function have to be in conflict. Sometimes functional can also look good. It works in nature and it works in designs made by humans.

Astronomical Inspiration

Pictures are from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive