Charles Eames Quotes

United States, Designer
1907 – 1978.

Charles Ormond Eames, Jr. /ˈiːmz/ (1907–1978) and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Kaiser Eames (1912–1988) were an American design married couple who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture. Among their most well-known designs is the Eames Lounge Chair. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art, and film. Ray Kaiser Eames and Charles Eames worked together as creative partners.

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.

Charles Eames
- Life
Art resides in the quality of doing, process is not magic.

Charles Eames
- Art
- Quality
- Magic

Design is an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art.

Charles Eames
- Good
- Art
- May
The real questions are: Does it solve a problem? Is it serviceable? How is it going to look in ten years?

Charles Eames
- Real
The details are not the details. They make the design.

Charles Eames
- Design
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.

Charles Eames
- Purpose
- Design
Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.

Charles Eames
- Design
Who ever said that pleasure wasn't functional?

Charles Eames

Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.

Charles Eames
- People
- Quality
It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do.

Charles Eames
- Time
- Good
- Guilty
I have never been forced to accept compromises but I have willingly accepted constraints.

Charles Eames
Ideas are cheap. Always be passionate about ideas and communicating those ideas and discoveries to others in the things you make.

Charles Eames
In architecture the idea degenerated. Design allows a more direct and pleasurable route.

Charles Eames
- Design
- Architecture
Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.

Charles Eames
- World

It is not easy to do something good, but it is extremely difficult to do something bad.

Charles Eames
- Good
- Bad
Design may be a solution to some industrial problems.

Charles Eames
- May
- Design
It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.

Charles Eames
To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matter, to a privileged social class? Design addresses itself to the need.

Charles Eames
- Design
Designers should only innovate as a last resort.

Charles Eames
We work because it's a chain reaction, each subject leads to the next.

Charles Eames
- Work