Teaching is the rare profession where the customer isn't always right and needs to be told so appropriately.
John MaedaThe 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.
John MaedaI don't like creating software anymore. It's too exact. It's like karate; there's no room for error.
John MaedaWhat’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.
John MaedaI 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.
John MaedaThere 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.
John MaedaGrowing up, I found I was good at two things: Art and Math. To hear my parents say it, though, it was only, 'John is good at Math.
John MaedaMuseums are important. Design and art schools are important because they show how it should be done at the highest level of quality. Once people are exposed to quality, they recognize it right away and they appreciate it. People's tastes are changed by exposure to quality. Unless they can see it they can't want it. That's the brilliance of Apple - they provide quality in design.
John MaedaArt shows us that human beings still matter in a world where money talks the loudest, where computers know everything about us, and where robots fabricate our next meal and also our ride there.
John MaedaIf there were a prerequisite for the future successful digital creative, it would be the passion for discovery.
John MaedaThings that I can do myself, I either do by myself, or teach a willing undergraduate who doesn't know how to do those things by doing it for me. Things that I can't do myself, my graduate students should be doing.
John MaedaReally great products, like @nest, have #design baked in from the beginning instead of slapped on at the end.
John MaedaTechnology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions. Art makes questions. Leadership makes actions.
John MaedaMy 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.
John MaedaAs 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.
John MaedaWe 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.
John MaedaThe problem isn't how to make the world more technological. It's about how to make the world more humane again.
John MaedaAmidst 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.
John MaedaVideogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars.
John MaedaSkill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form.
John MaedaOur 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.
John MaedaThe best scientists that I've met are those that are humanists and scientists at the same time.
John MaedaPeople who can focus, get things done. People who can prioritize, get the right things done.
John MaedaNo place in the US better exemplifies the ethos to engineer new digital technologies than Silicon Valley
John MaedaThe difference between closing or opening your eyes is the choice between the imagined vs real. Blinking is only human.
John MaedaArtists change how we see the world - and that can have value in the way people do business.
John MaedaDesign is about crafting an experience that is unfamiliar enough to feel novel, yet familiar enough to instill confidence.
John MaedaApple products aren't simple technologies by any stretch, but there is a beautiful simplicity to them.
John MaedaCorporations today, by their razor sharp focus on the 'bottom line' and quarterly earnings, have lost their ability to innovate.
John MaedaResearch universities need excellent means to communicate and express their results to regular people.
John Maeda