Charles Pollock Quotes

I want people to love to sit in my chairs. You gotta want the people to buy it because they love it.

Every single item that we come into contact with on a daily basis has been designed by an artist. From the toothbrush we use in the morning, to the defibrillator that could save our lives, an artist is behind the design.

The tubular steel chair is surely rational from technical and constructive points of view. It is light, suitable for mass production, and so on. But steel and chromium surfaces are not satisfactory from the human point of view.

I think architecture, to be really intense and fulfilling, doesn't have to be large.

Every other piece of industrial design is a pot or a dish or something insignificant. But when you have a chair, it's like a sculpture of a person: it's alive. It's big. You can't miss it. It's a 'look at me!' item.

Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing. Whether it's designing the look and feel of the user experience, or the industrial design, or the system design, and even things like how the boards were laid out.

Form must never trump function. Some objects are made to look so smooth, you don't know where to pick them up or how to turn them on. If I'm designing a garlic press or cheese grater, I need my hand to fit comfortably on it. I like to know, instinctively, how to use it.

I do very little industrial design. I'm asked a lot, but I certainly don't see myself as an industrial designer.

Instead of using the machine as a metaphor for architecture, as Le Corbusier did, I use the human body. I want the public to know that it's them I'm designing for.

More than trends, consumers need functionality. Everything needs an element of fashion, but that's more like a spice.

In designing hardware to be used every day, it was important to keep both the human aspects and the machine in mind. What looks good also often feels good.

So much of what makes a room great is how you enter and circulate through it, how it addresses the body.

Chairs are like sculpture.

I've experienced firsthand the disconnect between furniture, their environments, and the way people work.

For me, how an appliance looks is as important as how efficiently it works.

Design helps shape our everyday interactions through products, furniture, objects, or experiences.

Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel.

I once got a postcard from a French poet who wrote - "you don't know me but I'm always very grumpy when I get up in morning. But when I get up now I put the tea kettle on, and when it starts to sing it makes me smile - goddamn you!" That's what happened when we first designed it - we got a lot of mail.

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it's this veneer - that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

In tech, people want an object for what's inside it, what it does. You need to make a defensive design that people won't walk away from. A chair is aggressive - you want a customer to choose it from many others.

The psychology of performance in athletic footwear and apparel is very real. Most athletes do not say, 'Just give me what works the best - I don't care what it looks like.' They're very concerned with what it looks like and how it makes them feel.

I couldn't make a headphone look like a piece of medical equipment or a toy, as most headphones do.

Industrial design is a superficial practice. You use your approach regardless of the project because there is no time for a deep understanding of a single product.

Function is fundamental to design, of course. If something doesn't work, it's a bad product, and I certainly get frustrated by things that aren't functional. But there has to be more than function. A house has to function, but if that's all it does, you don't love it.

When I make chairs, they have legs; they can go anywhere in the world. Interiors are a different responsibility. A house is a representation of where you are, and it has to be right for the place.