Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Simplified Tree

Where will you hang the star?

I gave a lecture last night at SCI-ARC in Los Angeles. The reknowned architecture school is housed in an old factory building that is at least the length of a Boeing 747. At the lecture I saw some old friends and past students including kinetic typographer Peter Cho, and Casey Reas of Processing fame. I was given the nicest introduction I've ever had from SCI-ARC faculty member Doris Sung. It's never easy to introduce someone or to be introduced by someone for a lecture. Doris provided an interesting story of her own childhood instead of a generic read of my biography. I now know how to better introduce someone's lecture in the future.

At the end of the lecture the audience was opened to questions. Thank goodness there weren't many questions and that the few questions that were asked were sufficiently difficult to answer. After the crowd dispersed, I talked to my old friend John Neuhart who worked closely with Charles and Ray Eames. The subject of my talk centered around "creativity" and Neuhart suggested that I more confidently use the word play. As adults that often try to look serious, we tend to avoid the image of being perceived as "playful."

The students held a dinner in my honor on the rooftop of a nearby apartment building. I had a 360-degree view of Los Angeles at night accompanied by a little cactus garden lit by strewn colored lights. Although the scene was completely synthetic in nature, the warmth of the light combined with the warmth of the company provided the completion of a pleasant evening.

As I was about to leave, I took a closer look at the cacti when it suddenly dawned upon me that I was looking at little trees of the desert. With a cactus tree, there is no distinction between the tree's leaves and the tree's trunk/branches. The cactus is a tree, simplified.

I must admit that I never cared for the aesthetics of cactus trees. Perhaps I was prejudiced against them for how they violated the prevalent symbology of Christmas trees with a green triangle pointed upwards sitting atop a little brown rectangle. Considering how much love I give my flip-flap I think I should make up for my past crime by adopting a cactus. I'll now have to think of a name.

Several readers commented that a cactus is not a tree, but instead an herb or a regular plant. A quick Google check reveals that 'cactus tree' is 653K, 'cactus plant' is 641K, and 'cactus herb' is 143K in terms of page counts. I'm happy to be wrong along with the rest of the world.

Posted by maeda at February 10, 2005 10:37 PM