John Maeda Argues Design Has Entered a Fundamentally New Era

Computers have overthrown the classical ideal of design, the former RISD president argues.

If you’re reading this, you’re part of a special community. 

Sometime over the last eighteen months, you attended one of Fortune’s invitation-only Brainstorm Design conferences in Singapore; were invited to one of our design-focused private dinners in London, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong or Shanghai, or signed up on our website for a newsletter reflecting the unique ethos of those events.

Introducing Business by Design.

This newsletter will publish weekly on Tuesdays. It will share Brainstorm Design’s dedication to three simple propositions: 

• Design has transformative power (for good and evil).
• Design is of vital relevance to business leaders, not just designers.
• An ability to understand design is a core skill required of C-level executives responsible for shaping corporate strategy—not just a “nice-to-have” that can be relegated to marketing or product departments.

Business by Design will emulate Fortune’s design events by taking a broad view of who designers are and what they do. Borrowing a taxonomy popularized by design and tech guru John Maeda, our audience will encompass these three categories of designers: “classical” designers, who create physical objects or products for a specific group of people; “commercial” designers, who innovate by seeking deep insights into how customers interact with products and services; and “computational” designers, who use programming skills and data to instantaneously satisfy millions of users.

Here’s what to expect.

In future newsletters, you’ll find a mix of topics and voices that match those three camps’ far-flung interests. Look for updates on the exploits of classical design stars like Yves Behar, Tony Fadell, Thomas Heatherwick, or Jony Ive. We’ll share insights and practical advice from firms like IBM, IDEO, McKinsey, and Salesforce on how design can help businesses delight customers. We’ll keep you up to speed on how tech giants like Airbnb, Google, and Tencent are using design and data to enhance user experiences.

We’ll also tell you how governments and non-governmental organizations are using design; explore the ways in which design and design thinking can be used to promote diversity, improve education, and protect the environment; and examine the ethical responsibilities of those who’ve learned to harness design’s extraordinary power.

In today’s email, meet John Maeda.

We’re delighted to share that he’ll be our opening speaker at next year’s Brainstorm Design in Singapore, March 25 to 26. (Sign up for an invitation here.) 

John is a classically trained graphic designer, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design, and author of the influential “Design in Tech Report.” In what he wryly refers to as the “Temple of Design,” John’s a card-carrying high priest. 

But he’s also a computer science expert who’s taught at MIT’s Idea Lab, and held senior positions at eBay, Automattic, and Kleiner Perkins. In August, he assumed a new role as chief experience officer at Publicis Sapient, the technology consulting arm of the global marketing and communications giant. So he worships at the Temple of Tech, too. 

Later this month, John will publish a new book called How to Speak Machine that seems sure to provoke cries of heresy from the classical design congregants. In it, he argues that we’ve entered a fundamentally new era, in which computers have overthrown the classical ideal of design as the production of a finished object. In this new era, he writes, the reigning definition of quality is: 

…an unfinished product flung out into the world and later modified by observing how it survives in the wild. It’s the opposite of betting big on a brand-name designer vetted by the Temple of Design to get it heroically just right with a grand ceremonial debut, and instead gathering a team of talented nerds who can take full advantage of a new material with new properties that can transform business.

How to Speak Machine is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the nexus of business, design and technology. Fortune will publish an exclusive online excerpt. We’ll give you a heads up in the next issue of Business by Design. 

More design news below, curated by my colleague Eamon Barrett.

Clay Chandler
Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Design
@ClayChandler
clay.chandler@fortune.com