A video from the TED conference this year, John Maeda talks simplicity in his quirky, complex, and brilliant way (link: DO). Very entertaining. Maeda was my second influence/inspiration to become a designer. Though he describes his early work as being complex, I always saw the concept behind it to be incredibly simple (sure it's complex, but it's just an infinity symbol). It's a quality very evocative of his mentor Paul Rand, who, of course, was my first influence.