John Maeda: New RISD President. Interesting.

The Board of Trustees of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) announced on December 21, 2007 that John Maeda, Associate Director of Research at the MIT Media Lab, has accepted the offer to become the 16th president of RISD.

For those of you who don't know him, this won't interest you. For those who do, it's hard to imagine the endless possibilities of this announcement. It's also interesting to see a working designer (albeit a somewhat limiting title for his actual accomplishments and qualifications) become a school president. That sort of changes the playing field a bit. Wow. I have enjoyed his blog over the last 2 years, and his book Thoughts On Simplicity is amazing. Even though this is a surprise to many, I do see it working and I so applaud the trustees of the school for making such a bold move.

Hum....

On an unrelated note, the RISD video announcing the new president is by no means representative of this forward thinking university. In fact, it reminds me of late 80's IBM quick cuts. Some of the video is just plain awkward and uncomfortable, and it's uncharacteristically contrived. Hey, that's my perspective. And that's why they call it BarryBlog. (I'm still a Maeda fan).

( via Businessweek )

icon | 050 | Top 50 Creative MANIFESTOS

August2007 edition of ICON magazine offers the icon| 050 | : personal manifestos from 50 top creatives such as Peter SAVILLE, JOHN MAEDA, REM KOOLHAAS, BRUCE MAU, STEFAN SAGMEISTER, YVES BÉHAR and 44 others.

( via swissmiss )

Design's Crystal Ball: A Look to 2015

Prepare your time machine–get it waxed and ready. It's time to visit the year 2015. Well, sort of.

If I understand correctly, the AIGA has provided exclusive content to TAXI Design network (I have posted on them several times in the past) in the form of a journey to define what the Designers of 2015 will look like, as well as the landscape of design a s a whole (see too this 2015 discussion on AIGA site). They collectively are inviting designers of today to discuss their own forecast on trends that will influence just 8 years from now. Man have things changed since 1999 – just 8 years ago. The idea is to get a handle on what 8 more years might look like in our biz. Kinda interesting.

To make things even more interesting, and in my opinion legit, they've established a roundtable of sorts which they are calling the Visionary Design Council. It's loaded with heavyweights. People like Brian Collins of Ogilvy & Mather; Marcia Lausen of Studio/lab and University of Illinois at Chicago; John Maeda of MIT Media Lab; Clement Mok, The Office of Clement Mok; Lisa Strausfeld, Pentagram; Hugh Dubberly, Dubberly Design Office; and many others.

This Visionary Council has done a significant part of the work and as a result, they have posted information from some of their reports.

I recommend this to everyone. As a young designer it will be good to hear the indicators as judged by this esteemed group of contemporaries. As a senior player, you can see how and if what you're doing today is on track, and/or so you can make judgments on course changes and the like. And if you're a freshman in high-school (if my math is right) you can get a leg up on your future design competition.

All in all another great resource from Bianca Zen and the Gang at TAXI Design Network (or TAXI as they are also called, but not to be confused with the advertising agency, Taxi canada or Taxi NYC).

( via a TAXI Design Network email )