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Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.

John Maeda

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John Maeda
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: January 1
Computer Scientist
Designer
Graphic Designer
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Simplification
Adding
Meaningful
Simplicity
Obvious
Design
Subtracting

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If you are going to have less things, they have to be great things.
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I like stuff designed by dead people. The old designers. They always got it right because they didn't have to grow up with computers. All of the people that made the spoon and the dishes and the vacuum cleaner didn't have microprocessors and stuff. You could do a good design back then.
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Simplicity and complexity need each other.
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As a genre, videogames take our minds on journeys, and we can control and experience them much more interactively than passively - especially when they are well-designed.
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There is a construct in computer programming called 'the infinite loop' which enables a computer to do what no other physical machine can do - to operate in perpetuity without tiring. In the same way it doesn't know exhaustion, it doesn't know when it's wrong and it can keep doing the wrong thing over and over without tiring.
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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.
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Technology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions. Art makes questions. Leadership makes actions.
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Videogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars.
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No place in the US better exemplifies the ethos to engineer new digital technologies than Silicon Valley
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Communication in every which way is everything for the leader.
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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.
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I have a confession: I'm not a man of simplicity. I spent my entire early career making complex stuff. Lots of complex stuff.
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When you're younger, think less and do more when you're older, do less and think more.
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People who can focus, get things done. People who can prioritize, get the right things done.
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Teaching is the rare profession where the customer isn't always right and needs to be told so appropriately.
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