PROVIDENCE –– The new president of the Rhode Island School of Design finds artistic inspiration in miniature sticky notes, in a roll of tape, in a pair of sticks on the ground that happen to form a perfect right angle.

John Maeda, who takes the reins from Roger Mandle next month to become RISD’s 16th president, gave his first public remarks in Rhode Island yesterday, at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s Business Expo 2008, held at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

The theme of his hour-long talk was balancing simplicity and complexity in design in the digital age. But it wasn’t nearly as dry as that might suggest.

Maeda’s playful delivery bounced between his observations about life, art and technology: why we want to eat more food than we need (ancient humans never knew when they were going to have dinner again); about the three shapes that make up the rules of art and design (square, triangle and circle –– the circle is friendly but boring); about why kids love complex devices and adults shun them (adults have figured out they are not immortal and don’t want to waste their remaining time figuring them out).

Maeda’s acclaim in art, design and computer science makes him difficult to categorize. Before coming to RISD, he was associate director of research for the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is credited with inventing the computer screen saver. Some of his early work in Web graphics became the foundation for interactive moving images that are now ubiquitous on Web sites.

“I was the guy who made all these things … the stuff that flies around and drives you crazy. I feel very bad about it,” Maeda said.

He has designed a limited-edition athletic shoe for Reebok and his official biography says he has developed projects for major corporations including Cartier, Google, Philips, Samsung and others.

His artwork and technology-related exhibitions have been displayed at many prestigious galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. One installation, at the Riflemaker Gallery in London, was a live, walk-in MySpace page.

The Times of London described Maeda as “an artist thinking beyond art, beyond where we are. He questions our very existence, our position on a raft floating somewhere between the Garden of Eden and Canaan –– the promised land. Our frantic, but ‘new, improved,’ interactive ‘life.’ ”

Maeda is also the author of several books, including The Laws of Simplicity, in which he outlines his 10 laws for simplifying complex systems with product designs.

He went over some of those principles during his talk yesterday. Law number-one is reduction. “The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction,” he said. Thoughtful is the key. For example, many hotels now leave notes for guests, asking them to use just one towel in order to cut down on water and electricity usage. But then they leave three towels in the bathroom. “After the first towel, you can’t help but wonder, can I use that second towel? The temptation is too great. That is a problem.”

The second law is organization, he said, which is the only way our brains can process all the information with which they are presented. An example of a product that organizes well is that thing in your kitchen drawer that separates knives, forks and spoons. “There’s no finer design than this object,” Maeda said.

Law eight: Trust. It’s the most important one to him, he said. “Without trust, there is nothing, really.”

“The best model out there in business is ‘omakase.’ … You sit down and the chef looks at you, looks at your skin color, looks at your wallet a bit, and says ah-hah, I have the perfect meal for you. And they make a meal for you. And that’s it. This kind of way of … doing business, dealing with people, this has to be the way things should be. If you think too much about your interactions, it’s too friction heavy.”

Maeda took a few questions from the audience, and one person asked him to explain in one sentence the secret to his optimism.

“Can I give a long sentence?” he asked.

“I’ve been very fortunate in very odd ways I can’t explain. I’ve done everything I ever thought I could do already, so I’m in kind of a bonus round of life.”

He said he enjoys helping people, and interacting with faculty and students.

“People are ready to roll. I want to help facilitate that. At the same time, I’m not afraid of failure. I know that failure will come in many ways. But I get over it. I think people who are creative get over it. Any artist knows that everything they make is ‘bad.’ Like, oh, I’m depressed. They get over it. So I think the artistic optimism is what’s driving me.”

tbarmann@projo.com