Charles Eames quotes

Charles Eames was an American designer, architect, and filmmaker, widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to modern furniture design. Together with his wife Ray Eames, his work influenced architecture, industrial design, and visual arts in the 20th century. He is remembered for iconic creations such as the Eames Lounge Chair and his innovative design philosophy. Here are 11 of his quotes:

The details are not the details. They make the design. (Charles Eames)
Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se. View quote
Charles Eames
Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world. View quote
Charles Eames
One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose. View quote
Charles Eames
The details are details. They make the product. The connections, the connections, the connections. It will in the end be these details that give the product its life. View quote
Charles Eames
I have never been forced to accept compromises but I have willingly accepted constraints. View quote
Charles Eames
[Design is] an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art. View quote
Charles Eames
Design may be a solution to some industrial problems. View quote
Charles Eames
Designers should only innovate as a last resort. View quote
Charles Eames
My wife is a painter, and a very good one... and we've been working together for, oh, twelve years now, I guess...and at first I used to help and criticize things she was doing, and then she would help and criticize things I was doing, and we would... pitch in and do all the jiggering for each other and get it as people do... and then, gradually, things begin to sort of, you know, entropy... things began to get shuffled, and pretty soon you didn't know, sort of, where one started and the other ended, and anything that we've looked at or talked about here, you know, I say that I'm doing it, but actually, she's doing it just as much as I am, only she sort of goes under the same corporate type name... View quote
Charles Eames
Q: Does the creation of Design admit constraint? Design depends largely on constraints. Q: What constraints? The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list. (Charles Eames)