John Maeda Quotes

Technology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions. Art makes questions. Leadership makes actions.

What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful . . . Great designers also pursue a mission. Great designers design with mankind in mind . . . The crossroads of science and art, innovation and inspiration are what I love about design.

The design is done when the problem goes away.

Design is a response to a specific problem. You are given a problem to solve, and then you let the problem itself tell you what your solution is.

You think about the beauty and what you want to transmit. If I think about designing, I can't design.

If you write your own tools, you can sort of see new things, design new things.

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

If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that - they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella.

Solve problems, make art, think deeply.

So that is the design process or the creative process. Start with a problem, forget the problem, the problem reveals itself or the solution reveals itself and then you reevaulate it. This is what you are doing all the time.

I like the idea that people get engaged thinking about design, about creativity. I don't see how it could possibly be bad.

Industry is best at the intersection of science and art.

Creativity, not money, is used to solve problems.

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.

I'm fascinated with design. I realized early that I had no talent in that direction, but I love talking with architects and designers about what they do. I appreciate applied creativity as a source of pleasure and meaning.

To me, very much of what is artistic is people's very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations.

I started out making personal pieces, and realized that I actually like designing. I am self-taught, so I had a lot to learn technically.

At Stanford, we teach 'design thinking' - that is, we put together small, interdisciplinary groups to figure out what the true needs are and then to apply the art of engineering to serve them.

When I studied graphic design, I learned a valuable lesson: There's no perfect answer to the puzzle, and creativity is a renewable resource.

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

As artists, I think that one of the good qualities we have is that we're imaginative. We're resourceful. We like challenges.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

I think now that the great thing is not so much the formulation of an answer for myself, for the theater, or the play-but rather the most accurate possible statement of the problem.