George Lois

In professional work - certainly in the arts and graphics - 99% of people have zero courage. They blow with the wind.

You can't test great advertising. You can only test the mediocre. Not that I don't care about demographics. You have to understand who you're going after.

Truly great images make all the other millions of images you look at unimportant. You gotta look at an image and understand it in a nanosecond.

In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction.

I've done truth to power all my life. It's got me into trouble, but who cares?

I don't design. I get what I think is a big idea, and I put the idea down. I'm not a designer. I'm a communicator.

Great advertising, in and of itself, becomes a benefit of the product.

Whatever the creative industry, when you're confronted with the challenge of coming up with a Big Idea, always work with the most talented, innovative mind available. Hopefully... that's you.

My concern has always been with creating images that catch people's eyes, penetrate their minds, warm their hearts and cause them to act.

With the way I worked, a client can give me everything they know about something, and then I go away and come back with advertising that knocks them out of their chair. They finally understand what kind of a company they are.

Ad agencies do all kinds of market research that ask people what they think they want, and instead, you should be creating things that you want. If you do something and you get it, the rest of the world will get it, too. Trust your own instincts, your own intellect, and your own sense of humor.

Nothing comes from nothing. You must continuously feed the inner beast that sparks and inspires.

A cautious creative is an oxymoron.

A graphic designer, you know, who understands ideas and understands that ideas are what makes the world go round, could change the world with a magazine. If one talent could do it right now, and everybody would stop saying it's the death of magazines.

To create great work, here's how you must spend your time:_x000D_ _x000D_ 1% Inspiration_x000D_ _x000D_ 9% Perspiration_x000D_ _x000D_ 90% Justification

The business world worships mediocrity. Officially we revere free enterprise, initiative and individuality. Unofficially we fear it.