Not everyday one of your personal heroes decides to start blogging. John Maeda, the legendary designer who explored like no one before him the artistic possibilities of computer code and spawned a whole generation of great digital artists through his work at MIT’s Computation and Aesthetics group, has just opened a blog about simplicity, one of his current projects. Although it may seem so, this is definitely not offtopic on Smart Mobs. In order to understand the effects of complexity and emergence, a common topic here, it could make sense considering also the opposite phenomenon:

I began this trek towards SIMPLICITY based upon a simple whim. I discovered that the letters of M-I-T (the school at which I serve as a Professor) occured in natural sequence in the word SIMPLICITY. Look at this: SIMPLICITY. I was even further surprised when I found that M-I-T is also in COMPLEXITY. To ignore this sign would be a kind of sacrilege for me, thus the quest for SIMPLICITY began.
On a more serious note however, I have always been interested in how the computer (which is an object of great complexity) and design (which is traditionally about simplicity) tend to mix poorly together like the proverbial “oil and water.” My early work in dynamic interactive graphics was all about seeking simplicity (design) in the context of complexity (technology). I now seek this balance not only in my own artwork, but in general society and beyond. Thus the SIMPLICITY consortium was formed as a means to achieve this end.

Considering Maeda’s programming skills are legendary, it is funny to read about his problems setting up a blog…

I thought it would be easy to build/start a blog. It turns out that it isn’t that easy really. (…) I spent 4 hours yesterday (12/17) trying to figure out the arcane CSS tags and blog-setup parameters. Thank goodness I don’t have to maintain a blog for a living.

Not everyday one of your personal heroes decides to start blogging. John Maeda, the legendary designer who explored like no one before him the artistic possibilities of computer code and spawned a whole generation of great digital artists through his work at MIT’s Computation and Aesthetics group, has just opened a blog about simplicity, [...]