Edward Tufte Quotes

Clutter is not a property of information. Clutter is a failure of design.

Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding.

I feel that every day, all of us now are being blasted by information design. It's being poured into our eyes through the Web, and we're all visualizers now; we're all demanding a visual aspect to our information. There's something almost quite magical about visual information. It's effortless; it literally pours in.

Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.

Practice design, Not Decoration: Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead, display information in a way that makes complex information clear.

We’re not adding to public awareness; we’re adding to public confusion.

There's no question there's enough information available to all of us in this society for darn near anything. The problem is the quality of the information, the presentation of it... You shouldn't have to be a lawyer.

In the course of our daily lives, we're bombarded with a barrage of visual messages, some blatantly aggressive, some subtle. The trick is to find a way to break through without adding to the clutter and the ugliness. We have to be responsible about that.

Good design is thorough, down to the last detail.

Good design makes a product understandable.

It is not how much empty space there is, but rather how it is used. It is not how much information there is, but rather how effectively it is arranged.

If you have no intuitive sense of design, then call yourself an "information architect" and only use Helvetica.

What is commonly overlooked in using the computer is the fact that the central goal of design is still to obviate failure, and thus it is critical to identify exactly how a structure may fail. The computer cannot do this by itself . . .

Style is the outcome of constraint.

Some of the commercial work I do is helping people to improve their presentations and add some design thinking. There are so many amazing things in science, and such great data, which can often be locked away. It's in the minds of these amazing practitioners, who can't necessarily express what they want in a visual way.

Everything starts with design.

Design has to work. Art does not.

Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.

Design has a powerful impact on the viewer. It has authority, and data also has the same air of authenticity and detail. It can be hard to argue with a graph, and it's hard to argue with data. So to combine data with a strong visual impact creates a powerful message.

In the art of design, color is to form what verse is to prose,--a more harmonious and luminous vehicle of the thought.

Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.

Every big computing disaster has come from taking too many ideas and putting them in one place.

Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite.

As designers we are influenced both consciously and subconsciously by everything we see around ourselves. Still, we always must try to avoid anything that has been defined as the latest and greatest "trend" in design.