Debbie Millman Quotes

If you can make a compelling argument, and win enough minds, and if you can transform various parts of our world sufficiently, then the moment belongs to you.

One piece of advice I think they should ignore is the value of being a “people person.” No one cares if you are a people person. Have a point of view, and share it meaningfully, thoughtfully, and with conviction.

Real education is a radical process. It thumps you on the head until everything you know makes no sense anymore. Then you run around picking up the pieces of your head and picking them back together. The pieces never go back together in the same way.

if you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.

"There comes a point when you realize that these things, these brands, aren’t "enough." [ . . . ] the search for having more or better or best is a precarious journey into the infinite. [ . . . ] No object, no product, and no brand can provide you with ultimate, infinite satisfaction."

I recommend the following course of action for those who are just beginning their careers or for those like me, who may be reconfiguring midway through: heed the words of Robert Frost. Start with a big, fat lump in your throat, start with a profound sense of wrong, a deep homesickness, or a crazy lovesickness, and run with it.

"There comes a point when you realize that these things, these brands, aren't "enough." Having more or better or best doesn't provide you with a lasting sense of having more or being better or being best. It's a rather fleeting experience, this romantic attachment to brands, and I find that if I'm not careful, the search for having more or better or best is a precarious journey into the infinite. When you depend on finite objects-or brands-to provide you with a long-term sense of self or love or pride or achievement, you start yourself out on a path with no end. No object, no product, and no brand can provide you with ultimate, infinite satisfaction."

I think market research is extremely valuable when it is used properly. But you must not use it to tell you what to do.

Hard decisions are only hard when you're making them.

You have to make your own happiness, wherever you are. Your job isn't going to make you happy, your spouse isn't going to make you happy, the weather isn't going to make you happy....You have to decide what you want, and you have to find that way of doing it, whether or not the outside circumstances are going to participate in your success...You have to be able to create your own happiness, period. And if you can't, then you need to find a good shrink who can help you figure out what it's going to take.

Design is one of the few disciplines that is a science as well as an art. Effective, meaningful design requires intellectual, rational rigor along with the ability to elicit emotions and beliefs. Thus, designers must balance both the logic and lyricism of humanity every time they design something, a task that requires a singularly mysterious skill.

Do you consider your work to be good? I consider my work good. I enjoy doing it, which helps a lot. Unfortunately, I get a lot of feedback, constantly, from people who write me about my work. But I know when I’m “giving one from column A, one from column B.” Overall, I think my work is pretty good, but I don’t think it’s great. What do you mean by “giving one from column A and one from column B”? The rule here is there are jobs you do for “god,” and there are jobs you do for money. I try to approach everything as a “god job” — lowercase g. At the beginning of a project, I ask, “What are we going to do, and how are we going to do it? How are we going to make a person fall in love?” And when we start getting questionable feedback about what we’ve done, we have to realize it’s not always possible to do the god job. That’s when I know we just have to get it done and get paid.

He designed the iconic Bob Dylan poster and the I Love New York icon. Milton Glaser

The commercial, anthropological, and sociological branding process that professionals engage in now creates visceral distinctions to evoke immediate responses in people.

The great distinction between purgatory and inferno, or hell, is that the people in purgatory know what they have done and the people in hell do not.