Ralph Caplan Quotes

#1. Designers shouldn't design for museums any more than mummies should die for them.

Ralph Caplan

#2. Attention must be paid' is the cardinal rule of design discipline, for the designer is above all someone who pays attention to the situation at hand.

Ralph Caplan

#3. A chair is the first thing you need when you don't really need anything, and is therefore a peculiarly compelling symbol of civilization. For it is civilization, not survival, that requires design.

Ralph Caplan

#4. If more designers had bad backs, we would have more good chairs.

Ralph Caplan

#5. Nothing is more to the point than a good digression.

Ralph Caplan

#6. ... no industrial designer worth his salt, or our attention, has been trained to work exclusively on any particular product, unless by accident. What he has been trained to do is practice a process called design, a process that includes esthetic choices but does not consist only of them.

Ralph Caplan

#7. Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.

Ralph Caplan

#8. All our media are given over to things that are better left unsaid.

Ralph Caplan