John Maeda

In 1966, Seattle, Washington, the Japanese-American, John Maeda was born. Maeda has many careers under his belt such as computer scientist, university proffessor, author but most importantly a graphic designer. Currently he resides as president of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Maeda was originally a software engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when he became fascinated with the work of Paul Rand and Muriel Cooper. Cooper was a director of MIT's Visual Language Workshop. After completing his bachelors and masters degrees at MIT, Maeda studied in Japan at Tsukuba University's Institute of Art and Design to complete his Ph.D. in design.
In 1999, he was named one of the 21 most important people in the 21st century by Esquire.n 2001, he received the National Design Award for Communication Design in the United States and Japan's Mainichi Design Prize. He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.
In 2006, Maeda published Laws of Simplicity, his best-selling book to date, based on a research project to find ways for people to simplify their life in the face of growing complexity.


References:
http://designboom.com
http://maedastudio.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maeda
http://lawsofsimplicity.com