Quotes from John Maeda

The best scientists that I've met are those that are humanists and scientists at the same time.

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.

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.

The artist needs to understand the truth that lies at the bottom of an enigma.

I don't really love computers.

I don't like creating software anymore. It's too exact. It's like karate; there's no room for error.

Research universities need excellent means to communicate and express their results to regular people.

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.

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

One of the challenges to our nation today is overcoming the notion that art is kind of a nice-to-have, when in reality art is a need-to-have.

Art is a conduit toward human needs and perception.

Design provides solutions, art asks questions.

Growing 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.

Communication in every which way is everything for the leader.

Think of the computer as a spiritual space for thinking.

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

Videogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars.

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

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

Really great products, like @nest, have #design baked in from the beginning instead of slapped on at the end.

In the '70s and '80s there was an attempt in K-12 to teach science through art or art through science. The challenge today is how do you build the ethos of art and design into the academy of science.

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.