John Maeda Quotes

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.

Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.

When people say, 'I don't get art' ... that means art is working.

Design is about crafting an experience that is unfamiliar enough to feel novel, yet familiar enough to instill confidence.

What’s next for technology and design? A lot less thinking about technology for technology’s sake, and a lot more thinking about design. Art humanizes technology and makes it understandable. Design is needed to make sense of information overload. It is why art and design will rise in importance during this century as we try to make sense of all the possibilities that digital technology now affords.

Too little confidence, and you're unable to act; too much confidence, and you're unable to hear.

People who can focus, get things done. People who can prioritize, get the right things done.

The problem isn't how to make the world more technological. It's about how to make the world more humane again.

Technology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions. Art makes questions. Leadership makes actions.

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Our economy is built upon convergent thinkers, people that execute things, get them done. But artists and designers are divergent thinkers: they expand the horizon of possibilities.

A designer is someone who constructs while he thinks, someone for whom planning and making go together.

The best designers in the world all squint when they look at something. They squint to see the forest from the trees - to find the right balance. Squint at the world. You will see more, by seeing less.

Simplicity and complexity need each other.

If you are going to have less things, they have to be great things.

Good problem-seekers are in higher demand than good problem-solvers.

My role is to find strategic insights as to where design can have the most business impact. A designer can bring a viewpoint of not just aesthetics, but economics and usage.

If you have no fear, no one has power over you.

Skill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form.

How do we slow down what matters the most and speed up what benefits change and progress? We don't want to impede progress, but we are seeking reconnection to ourselves, to each other, and with the world.

Amidst all the attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life.

When you're younger, think less and do more; when you're older, do less and think more.

All I want to be is, someone that makes, new things and, thinks about them.

If there were a prerequisite for the future successful digital creative, it would be the passion for discovery.

We seem to forget that innovation doesn't just come from equations or new kinds of chemicals, it comes from a human place. Innovation in the sciences is always linked in some way, either directly or indirectly, to a human experience.