"It can't be stressed enough that in order to produce great graphics, you have to have a good product and a good client capable of making decisions"
About this Quote
Design culture loves the myth of the lone genius: the artist who drags beauty out of chaos by sheer taste. Primo Angeli punctures that fantasy with a blunt, almost managerial truth: great graphics are less a miracle of inspiration than a supply chain with two non-negotiables - a solid product and a decisive client. The line reads like advice, but it functions like a boundary. It’s the quiet sentence a working creative learns to say after one too many rounds of “Can we see it in blue?” from someone who can’t articulate what they’re selling.
The intent is pragmatic: protect outcomes by naming dependencies. Angeli isn’t flattering designers; he’s reminding everyone that design is downstream from business reality. If the product is muddled, the visuals can only varnish the confusion. If the client can’t decide, the work becomes an infinite loop where revisions replace strategy and aesthetics become a proxy battleground for internal politics.
The subtext is sharper: “good taste” doesn’t rescue structural dysfunction. A client “capable of making decisions” isn’t just someone who picks a font; it’s someone with authority, clarity, and a coherent organization behind them. That phrase quietly indicts the modern corporate habit of committee-led creativity, where no one owns the risk, so everyone owns the feedback.
Contextually, it lands as a corrective to the Instagram-ification of design, where outputs are celebrated without acknowledging inputs. Angeli is arguing for accountability on both sides: designers bring craft, clients bring clarity, and the product brings the truth you can’t design your way around.
The intent is pragmatic: protect outcomes by naming dependencies. Angeli isn’t flattering designers; he’s reminding everyone that design is downstream from business reality. If the product is muddled, the visuals can only varnish the confusion. If the client can’t decide, the work becomes an infinite loop where revisions replace strategy and aesthetics become a proxy battleground for internal politics.
The subtext is sharper: “good taste” doesn’t rescue structural dysfunction. A client “capable of making decisions” isn’t just someone who picks a font; it’s someone with authority, clarity, and a coherent organization behind them. That phrase quietly indicts the modern corporate habit of committee-led creativity, where no one owns the risk, so everyone owns the feedback.
Contextually, it lands as a corrective to the Instagram-ification of design, where outputs are celebrated without acknowledging inputs. Angeli is arguing for accountability on both sides: designers bring craft, clients bring clarity, and the product brings the truth you can’t design your way around.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
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