How art, technology and design inform creative leaders
"John Maeda is the president of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is dedicated to linking design and technology. Through the software tools, web pages and books he creates, he spreads his philosophy of elegant simplicity."
Maeda breaks his talk into four sections: technology, design, art, and leadership. He explores each individually as well as in combination with one another. Each has its merits on its own, but when combined, amazing things can happen. It’s the concept of synergy but on a grand scale. The power of combining these four elements, Maeda states, “can entirely change the way we design and think about systems in our society.”
Maeda begins with a discussion of technology, in which he highlights the incredible trajectory of inventions of the late twentieth to the twenty-first century, reminding his audience that what nowadays seems so primitive and laughable, like the Apple II computer, was only invented a little over 30 years ago. However, he notes the limitations of technology. Although computers and phones are much more advanced nowadays than they used to be, digital technology has done roughly the same thing – produced text, images, sound, and movies – for the past 20 years. Yet, what makes technology different today than even just ten years ago is the emphasis placed on design. Technology is defined as what makes possibilities, and design as what makes solutions.
In his discussion of design, Maeda mentions two words that come up endlessly: form and function. He illustrates the concept brilliantly, utilizing the example of the word “fear,” and how treating the four letters in different ways can change the way the audience perceives the word. Although the function remains the same—the definition of the word does not actually change—changing the form changes how the word is understood. Maeda describes it as a kind of magic—proof of the power of design.
Moving onto the topic of Art, characterized as that which “makes questions”, Maeda discusses the importance of art and the positive outcomes that come from not understanding it. He declares that the balance in which lies “good” art (and good design, good business, good strategy, etc.) exists between the old and the new; the quality of the way things used to be combined with the innovation of the way things are headed in the future.
Finally, Maeda moves on to leadership, which he declares “makes actions”. He discusses how leaders need to learn from artists and designers, because the system of leadership has changed in the modern era. Traditional leaders, he claims, are afraid to make mistakes, whereas designers and artists make mistakes constantly, many that lead to truly great creations and the ability to learn and grow.
Takeaways
Maeda discusses how the four different areas, technology, design, art, and leadership, can combine to create new methods of thinking, particularly about business, and create new systems of linking seemingly opposing areas or ideas together. More than the formal elements of design, Maeda’s talk illuminates the thought process of a designer, and how different it is from the thought process of a person who does not design. Through his examples of the rise of technological innovation, the ability of form to influence function, the combination of the old and the new to create the good, and the ability of multi-dimensional, design-oriented thinking to positively influence and change outdated systems, Maeda produces a compelling argument for the importance and influence of designers on the world. His talk serves to further emphasize an idea intrinsic to our design educations, one that nearly every teacher mentions at some point in their classes: that unlike what many non-designers believe, design is not, at its core, about how things look. Design is about how things work. Whether it be keeping a person’s attention long enough to read an article in a magazine, creating an easily navigational and usable piece of technology, or developing a system of learning or business that reaches far beyond its basic goals—all at their core involve good design. Maeda’s talk opened my eyes to how diverse and multi-faceted the world of design can be, and leaves me inspired to explore the many different avenues of what design, and I as a designer, can achieve. I urge you all to watch his brilliant 15-minute talk, and become more inspired designers because of it.
