John Maeda

That was after a career at MIT where it was all engineering and then back to the handmade.

And

I was struck by how much human emotion, human pride lives in that community.

And I felt it would have to surface through in the software industry.

But as a longtime proponent of computer programming for artists and designers, whether through processing or scratch, it was too hard for those people to engage.

But now it's that floor of getting in has been lowered.

Everyone's coming in.

It's a really great time right now.

It's also very confusing.

So that's why Paul's approach is unique in that it's high quality and high thought-based, which gives hope for more people to not choose the wrong solution.

I think taste is always cultural and different cultures have quote unquote higher taste, specifically because they've usually been around longer.

They've had the material around longer and therefore they've had maturity.

For instance, if you go to Denmark and you sit in a furniture, any type of furniture, like chair or sofa or table, you're like, wow, this is nice stuff.

We walk around the US, it's like, I mean, I'm sorry, but not that great sometimes, because the US, we invented the styrofoam plate, for instance.

You go to Japan, you know, centuries of evolved approaches to raw materials, and not only that, scarcity of material.

When raw material is scarce, we tend to make it more precious and design things well.

Taste emerges through scarcity.

The last point on this is we have to remember that design in the European sense came from royalty.

and the desire to be distinctive.

I've got fur, I've got gold, I've got emerald, I'm important.