100 Design Thinking Quotes for Practical Business Insight
Design thinking is a practical yet deeply human approach to solving problems.
It puts empathy, experimentation, and user experience at the center of innovation.
These quotes capture the essence of this mindset, offering insights into how to create solutions that actually resonate.
If you’re working on customer-first strategies or building better systems, these ideas are worth your time.
Top Design Thinking Quotes
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent. ~ Joe Sparano
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design is not a single object or dimension. Design is messy and complex. ~ Natasha Jen
Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is intelligence made visible. ~ Alina Wheeler
Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem. ~ John Maeda
Design is thinking made visual. ~ Saul Bass
Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking. ~ Chris Pullman
Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated. ~ Paul Rand
Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. ~ Charles Eames
Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public. ~ Valerie Pettis
Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking. ~ Ellen Lupton
Design is the intermediary between information and understanding. ~ Hans Hoffman
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. ~ Robert L. Peters
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is a formal response to a strategic question. ~ Mariona Lopez
Human-Centered Design Quotes
Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible. ~ Don Norman
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likable person. ~ Alan Cooper
A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good. ~ Martin LeBlanc
Good design makes a product useful. ~ Dieter Rams
Good design is honest. ~ Dieter Rams
Good design is as little design as possible. ~ Dieter Rams
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
The details are not the details. They make the design. ~ Charles Eames
Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem. ~ John Maeda
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design is intelligence made visible. ~ Alina Wheeler
Design is thinking made visual. ~ Saul Bass
Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking. ~ Chris Pullman
Design is the method of putting form and content together. ~ Paul Rand
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. ~ Charles Eames
Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking. ~ Ellen Lupton
Design is the intermediary between information and understanding. ~ Hans Hoffman
Design Process Quotes
The design process, at its best, integrates the aspirations of art, science, and culture. ~ Jeff Smith
Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. ~ Charles Eames
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design is intelligence made visible. ~ Alina Wheeler
Design is thinking made visual. ~ Saul Bass
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem. ~ John Maeda
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking. ~ Chris Pullman
Design is the method of putting form and content together. ~ Paul Rand
Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking. ~ Ellen Lupton
Design is the intermediary between information and understanding. ~ Hans Hoffman
Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. ~ Robert L. Peters
Design is a formal response to a strategic question. ~ Mariona Lopez
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent. ~ Joe Sparano
Design is not a single object or dimension. Design is messy and complex. ~ Natasha Jen
Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public. ~ Valerie Pettis
Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design Innovation Quotes
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. ~ Steve Jobs
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Peter Drucker
Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. ~ Peter Drucker
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. ~ Albert Einstein
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Innovation is taking two things that exist and putting them together in a new way. ~ Tom Freston
There’s a way to do it better—find it. ~ Thomas Edison
Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time. ~ Bill Gates
Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity—not a threat. ~ Steve Jobs
The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast. ~ Peter Drucker
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. ~ Theodore Levitt
Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity. ~ Michael Porter
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes
You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level. ~ Albert Einstein
Innovation comes from saying NO to 1,000 things. ~ Steve Jobs
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. ~ Albert Einstein
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~ Albert Einstein
Creativity is intelligence having fun. ~ Albert Einstein
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic. ~ Peter Drucker
Innovation is change that unlocks new value. ~ Jamie Notter
Design Leadership Quotes
Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem. ~ John Maeda
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design is intelligence made visible. ~ Alina Wheeler
Design is thinking made visual. ~ Saul Bass
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking. ~ Chris Pullman
Design is the method of putting form and content together. ~ Paul Rand
Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking. ~ Ellen Lupton
Design is the intermediary between information and understanding. ~ Hans Hoffman
Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. ~ Robert L. Peters
Design is a formal response to a strategic question. ~ Mariona Lopez
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent. ~ Joe Sparano
Design is not a single object or dimension. Design is messy and complex. ~ Natasha Jen
Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose. ~ Charles Eames
Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public. ~ Valerie Pettis
Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order. ~ Victor Papanek
Design is where science and art break even. ~ Robin Mathew
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~ Steve Jobs
