Maeda @ Media

by John Maeda, Nicholas Negroponte (Foreword)

John Maeda is a pioneer in the world of graphic art and is quickly crossing over from graphic design to pop culture icon. Maeda has developed an entirely new computer language that sits artfully between abstraction, craftsmanship, and pure communication. In addition to his pioneering language, Maeda has amassed a fascinating, interactive, and stunningly beautiful collection of work. Among his most well-known works are "The Reactive Square", which features a simple black square on a computer screen that changes shape if one yells at it. He has created innovative, interactive calendars, greeting cards, and advertisements for companies such as Sony, Shisheido, and Absolut Vodka.

A glorious visual exploration of ideas and graphic form, Meada @ Media is a compendium of experience and experimentation that has taken a decade to gather. Twelve thematic chapters provide an overview of his entire career and research. Also included is new, riveting imagery that has been created exclusively for this publication.

Coming together in a massive 464 pages, printed in a dazzling array of color combinations on three different kinds of paper, the result is a manifesto, a finely crafted manual and inspiration sourcebook all in one.

Author Biography: John Maeda is Sony Professor of Media Arts and Science at the M.I.T. Media Lab. He is the author of Design by Numbers.

Nicholas Negroponte is the director of the M.I.T. Lab and the author of Being Digital.

Genres: Design, Art, Art Design, Nonfiction, Technology, Reference

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2000

About the author

John Maeda [MY-ay-da] is a world-renowned artist, graphic designer, computer scientist and educator whose career reflects his philosophy of humanizing technology. For more than a decade, he has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation.

Maeda's early work redefined the use of electronic media as a tool for expression by combining skilled computer programming with sensitivity to traditional artistic concerns. This work helped to develop the interactive motion graphics that are prevalent on the web today. A pioneering voice for simplicity in the digital age, he also initiated the Design by Numbers project, a global initiative to teach computer programming to visual artists through a freely available, custom software system he designed.

As a digital artist, Maeda has exhibited in well-received one-man shows in London, New York and Paris. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Cartier Foundation in Paris. In the design realm, he is a trustee of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and has developed advanced projects for major corporations such as Cartier, Google, Philips, Reebok and Samsung, among others.

In 2008 Maeda was named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine. In 2001 he earned the National Design Award in the US; in 2002, the Mainichi Design Prize in Japan; and in 2005, the Raymond Loewy Foundation Prize in Germany.

A former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Maeda taught media arts and sciences there for 12 years and served as associate director of research at the MIT Media Lab. He has published four books, including his 480-page retrospective MAEDA@MEDIA and his most recent, The Laws of Simplicity, which has been translated into 14 languages. Maeda has lectured widely, including at Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, the Royal College of Art, Stanford and UCLA; at the Centre Pompidou, TED conferences and Walker Art Center; and for corporations such as Herman Miller, Sony, Steelcase, Toshiba and Yahoo!.

A native of Seattle, Maeda earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, followed by a PhD in Design Science from the University of Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan and an MBA from Arizona State University.

Reviews

[aj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was published in 2000, and reading it in 2018 lends an interesting perspective on digital media and design. Maeda’s work is playful, and although his discussion of computers is a little dated, the concepts are timeless.

[Yokusun Basi]

Maeda @ Media by John Maeda (2000)

[Nico Macdonald]

Excerpt from my review for Eye magazine: Maeda’s elevation in the design world would seem to indicate a need for a serious discussion among designer of creativity in the digital domain. In this sense Maeda can’t be compared to David Carson. And Da Vinci? This may not be an age that spawns people of his callibre, but if Maeda’s ‘post-visual’ experiments can kick off in the twenty-first century what the Italian Renaissance painters, with their development of perspective, did for the visual five hundred years ago we will make some great strides. A renaissance man’s mission, Eye, No 39, Vol 10 (Spring 2001)

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Maeda grew up making tofu and now is an amazing graphic designer/artist. I'm totally into tofu and graphic design, three thumbs up!

[Benjamin Ma]

It is one of my favourite designer books collection. He is a talent. The books gave me inspiration, direction, energy and fun.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A massive, groundbreaking talent.
Amazing that this book came out 12 years ago.

So many contemporary media artists are treading over the same ground John covered in the 1990s...

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had quite an influence on me and my path.

[Moskovich]

Beautiful!