John Maeda

“Art 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.”

“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.”

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

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

“I have a confession: I'm not a man of simplicity. I spent my entire early career making complex stuff. Lots of complex stuff.”

“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.”

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

“Creativity's about ownership.”

“I don't really love computers.”

“Apple products aren't simple technologies by any stretch, but there is a beautiful simplicity to them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Corporations today, by their razor sharp focus on the 'bottom line' and quarterly earnings, have lost their ability to innovate.”

“Artists change how we see the world - and that can have value in the way people do business.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“With regard to what is designed really well, I think people are the best-designed objects in the world. Seriously.”

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

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