Mr. Maeda's World

Mr. Maeda's World
Designing by numbers is rewriting computer creativity

By Dennis Potharst

So, with all the computer design programs out there, currently monopolized by software giant Adobe, it would seem that any enthusiastic 14-year-old can become a design impressario almost overnight. Not so, says the man whose artistic ideas have both shocked and disgusted his student's professors and collegues alike.

The man in question is John Maeda, the 32-year-old director of the MIT Media Labs Aesthetics and Computation Group, or ACG, whose expertise in writing code spilled over into the world of creating art on the screen. First of all, Maeda believes that unless you can actually write code, you can't truly create with the computer. A pretty strong statement considering the amount of software and instructional books and teaching aides presently available on the market that makes relatively inexperienced users proficient in no time flat. But he says that computer design programs are only part in parcel to making true digital art.

As a matter of fact, it was Maeda himself who started with a series of books where he learned how to combine computer science and visual arts. Having previously studied engineering and computer science as an MIT student up until 1989, Maeda decided to pursue visual art at Tsukuba University near Tokyo in 1990. From there, Maeda "went crazy" with digital design, a phrase he uses to describe his obsessive nature.

One project he undertook was an event poster for Too, a Japanese graphic arts supply company that manufactured his favourite coloured markers. "Each marker has a colour number and a name, so I took Too's entire catalogue of 220 pens and extracted the CMYK simulations and also the number/name pairs to synthesize patterns on that theme," he says. "Rather than arranging the colours on a grid, I thought of using them like pixels, which could be arranged or rearranged according to any of the datum extracted."

Simply put, Maeda pioneered a new way of designing art digitally - without standard design tool bars = and it's streamed down to his teaching methods at MIT. Maeda explains the biggest problem with tools is that they give designers the illusion of unfettered creativity. "Designers think, 'I can make my imagination,'"he says. "They don't realize they're in someone else's imagination." Reed Kram, a graduate of ACG who is now a reseracher at the Chalmers Architecture School in Sweden, says that Maeda made it his mission "to challenge the common assumptions about making design on the computer."

Learning that the computer is a valid design medium in itself, and not merely a tool for making traditional design was one of the basic truths Kram took from Maeda while at MIT. The other: That we can take the craft of design in a computer medium very seriously. It may still be a common assumption that computer art, to date, has not been taken very seriously, even with the extent of software programs and Maeda's work. But Maeda's style of melding computer coding with the immense complexity through the repetition of very simple design elements, will represent the new age of computer design. "Simple codes are as elegant as any modern sculpture," Maeda says.

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Mr. Maeda's World Designing by numbers is rewriting computer creativity By Dennis Potharst So, with all the computer design programs out there, currently monopolized by software giant Adobe, it would seem that any enthusiastic 14-year-old can become a design impressario almost overnight. Not so, says the man whose artistic ideas have both shocked and disgusted his student's professors and collegues alike. The man in question is John Maeda, the 32-year-old director of the MIT Media Labs Aesthetics and Computation Group, or ACG, whose expertise in writing code spilled over into the world of creating art on the screen. First of all, Maeda believes that unless you can actually write code, you can't truly create with the computer. A pretty strong statement considering the amount of software and instructional books and teaching aides presently available on the market that makes relatively inexperienced users proficient in no time flat. But he says that computer design programs are only part in parcel to making true digital art. As a matter of fact, it was Maeda himself who started with a series of books where he learned how to combine computer science and visual arts. Having previously studied engineering and computer science as an MIT student up until 1989, Maeda decided to pursue visual art at Tsukuba University near Tokyo in 1990. From there, Maeda "went crazy" with digital design, a phrase he uses to describe his obsessive nature. One project he undertook was an event poster for Too, a Japanese graphic arts supply company that manufactured his favourite coloured markers. "Each marker has a colour number and a name, so I took Too's entire catalogue of 220 pens and extracted the CMYK simulations and also the number/name pairs to synthesize patterns on that theme," he says. "Rather than arranging the colours on a grid, I thought of using them like pixels, which could be arranged or rearranged according to any of the datum extracted." Simply put, Maeda pioneered a new way of designing art digitally - without standard design tool bars = and it's streamed down to his teaching methods at MIT. Maeda explains the biggest problem with tools is that they give designers the illusion of unfettered creativity. "Designers think, 'I can make my imagination,'"he says. "They don't realize they're in someone else's imagination." Reed Kram, a graduate of ACG who is now a reseracher at the Chalmers Architecture School in Sweden, says that Maeda made it his mission "to challenge the common assumptions about making design on the computer." Learning that the computer is a valid design medium in itself, and not merely a tool for making traditional design was one of the basic truths Kram took from Maeda while at MIT. The other: That we can take the craft of design in a computer medium very seriously. It may still be a common assumption that computer art, to date, has not been taken very seriously, even with the extent of software programs and Maeda's work. But Maeda's style of melding computer coding with the immense complexity through the repetition of very simple design elements, will represent the new age of computer design. "Simple codes are as elegant as any modern sculpture," Maeda says. Back to issues