John Maeda’s Simplicity
Today John Maeda gave a presentation on simplicity, promoting his book with the same title, at Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale. Luckily for people who can't be present physically for that presentation, there was a webcast.
So bunch of us from the Santa Monica office, watched the presentation in one of our conference rooms.
The presentation was not like what I expected, although it was as inspiring(if not more so) than what I expected.
I expected something very technical or academic from a very serious presenter since the only exposure to Prof. Maeda's work that I had was through using his "Design by Numbers" book and application.
The presentation was very lighthearted and refreshing. Prof. Maeda told many jokes, verbally and visually while sharing his wisdom without putting himself on a pedestal.
There were many interesting things said and shown in that presentation, but one thing that really sticks with me is seeing simplicity not as the answer, but as a question.
It's not about making things work better of more productive. It's about life appreciation more than design or programming principles (although his law of simplicity would probably work very well in those domains also).
If anyone ask me how I would describe my impression of that presentation in one line, I would say: "Wow! That guy really knows how to enjoy life!" So simplify your life so you can enjoy it more.