Filed under: books
Just finished reading Maeda’s new book, The Laws of Simplicity. It was a quick, easy read and very enjoyable. Basically, the book is about life, organization, design and business, and the ways that simplicity (and often even complexity) can be adopted into working methodologies to make life easier and better. It’s full of funny and charming anecdotes from Maeda’s career and personal life; the whole time you’re reading it, you really feel like your sitting in an armchair, reflecting on (sometimes commiserating) the ways that technology has made life easier but simultaneously much more difficult. One of my favorite anecdotes of his, is when Negroponte tells him to be a “lightbulb” instead of a “lazer beam”, and illuminate more rather than specify too much. I also really appreciated how Maeda goes into deatail about becoming a student again and how that affected his approach to teaching. The other thing I really like, is the meta-discoursive nature of the text, and how Maeda applies his own laws to his own book, often times even criticizing parts of it.
The book is split into 10 “laws” of simplicity and three “keys”. You can read about them here, where the book topics continue in a dynamic discussion, or hell, just read the book. I’d recommend it to anybody who cares about technology, efficiency, emotion in design, and discussions about work methodologies and practices.
