John Maeda says his career might be a “mistake.” He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he says he probably should have gone on to be a computer programmer for a software company somewhere. Instead, he went to arts school.
Apparently, some mistakes are good. The Seattle native has become a world-renowned designer, innovator and artist. In 1999, Esquire magazine named Maeda one of the 21 most important people for the 21st century.
Now, he’s been selected to take over the presidency at Rhode Island School of Design when Roger Mandle steps down in June.
PBN: You’re going from a school with a technology focus to become the president of one with an arts and design focus. Will that leap be difficult?
MAEDA: It’s kind of a dream of mine to come back to arts school. I went to MIT, then to arts school in Japan, and it was a life-changing moment, because I realized that you don’t need technology to survive. At MIT, the T stands for technology, but at arts school I was able to connect with the human side – creativity and expression – then I came back to MIT, and I’ve been there for 11 years now. And I was starting to feel like I was “over-technologized.”
[The RISD job] is an incredible opportunity and an incredible challenge. I like doing things that seem impossible, and this seems, actually, nicely impossibly possible.
PBN: What are your duties at the MIT Media Lab?
MAEDA: I work with 70-plus sponsors that are looking for how to get more value out of their relationships with academia, companies like Target and Google and IBM, these kind of companies. It’s an incredible privilege, because we get to work with some of the top innovators inside those companies. So it’s a natural synergy of great minds on the business side and great minds of the academic side.
PBN: Would you like to bring those types of relationships to RISD?
MAEDA: They can’t be exactly the same because MIT is a school of technology. But RISD is a global center of innovation… RISD is really a hotbed of creativity. So I would say that businesses today are thirsty and hungering for innovation, which means risk. And risk in business is not allowed. So how do you make risk less risky is the key question and at the Media Lab, I work very hard with my colleagues to build a formula where risk is actually good for corporations…. So, perhaps. I’m not sure. I want to understand what the RISD community feels like. That’s my first test. How does this all work, how can it fit in?
PBN: How do you feel about corporate involvement with the art world?
MAEDA: The relationship between artists and corporations is changing. About three weeks ago, I was in Miami. … There [were] like 20 different art events that happen simultaneously. It’s sort of surreal – all the people that fly there to buy art, all the corporations involved. I think that art and corporations are very tightly linked right now. Now, am I saying that’s a good thing? I don’t really believe in good and bad – it’s always gray. It’s good and it’s bad, but that’s how all things are.
PBN: This might be premature – considering you won’t be taking over until June – but what are your goals for the school?
MAEDA: It is premature because my job, number one, is to understand RISD. Every time I come to RISD, I make a binder of everything I’ve learned and each time I come back home, I have a binder that’s an inch thick. So by next year, I figure I’ll have enough to fill an entire room. … I’m always studying. I like to learn new things. Will it be a challenge? No question, but it’s what I want.
PBN: In recent years, the RISD campus has undergone significant expansion here in Providence. Is that something you’d like to see continue?
MAEDA: My position is always about excellence. And if growth equals excellence then it makes sense. If staying the same means excellence, that’s great. It’s all about excellence in the end. I’d like RISD in 10 years to be seen as more important than a school like Yale or Stanford, and it doesn’t have to be that big to be that important.
PBN: You’ve written a book called “The Laws of Simplicity,” and you also write a blog on the same topic. Why the focus on keeping things simple?
MAEDA: I’m seen as the father of the simplicity movement in the technology age. I got things moving for many companies to think about simplicity. I was involved with Philips’ Sense and Simplicity line. I was on their advisory board. I worked with Samsung to help simplify their consumer electronics. I have 10 laws of simplicity that have evolved online. It’s been a great thing. … I write about a broad range of things. I write about how to simplify technologies. I’m just curious about life.
PBN: Why do you think the RISD’s trustees selected you for the job?
MAEDA: I think they were attracted to the fact that I’m curious about things. [The position] is a radical change, but a curious person likes that kind of stuff. What’s the saying … “an explorer is someone who’s always lost.” I’m an explorer, and I feel lost and want to be found. … I think they see that for an art and design school today, there’s no quick path to salvation. Do you buy a bunch of computers and install Adobe [software]? … All the formulas are there right now, but not the formulas we’ll need 10 years from now. So I think RISD is betting on my ability to find out not what’s going the happen now – because we know what’s happening now – but look 10, 20 years out in the future. How do we get kids who want to come to an art and design school and who want to change the world, get [the chance] to change the world? The only way is for them to know what’s coming, not what’s happening now. •
Interview: JOHN MAEDA
POSITION: Incoming Rhode Island School of Design president; current associate director of research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
BACKGROUND: Maeda has been a professor at MIT since 1996 and also has been a practicing designer since 1990. He has developed advanced projects for corporations such as Cartier, Google, Philips, Reebok, Samsung and others. He also has published four books, including his most recent, “The Laws of Simplicity,” which has been translated into 14 languages. His works of contemporary art have been exhibited internationally, and his early work in digital-media design is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has won numerous design awards, including the National Design Award in 2001.
EDUCATION: B.A., in computer science, 1988, MIT; M.S. in electrical engineering, 1989, MIT; Ph.D. in design science, 1996, University of Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan; M.B.A., 2006, Arizona State University.
RESIDENCE: Lexington, Mass.
AGE: 41
