John Maeda wrote a book on what he sees as the 10 Laws of Simplicity. This a book in print, but he offers it for free o
n the website: The Laws of Simplicity. I liked this quote from Law 2: “…in the long term an effective scheme for organization is necessary to achieve definitive success in taming complexity.” Very interesting approach to Simplicity from a man that is anything but simple.
Here is a talk by John Maeda on TED (Ideas Worth Spreading). Offers an entertaining discussion on how John found his path and a little bit about his view of the world.
Quote from the author, John Maeda: “I wrote The Laws of Simplicity in late 2005 to early 2006 to get my thoughts down about simplicity. In the course of 100-pages, I outline the Ten Laws as used on this website.”
THE MAP HABIT 
Simplicity is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined. It often denotes beauty, elegance, sophistication, purity and clarity. Simplicity is a virtue worth striving for, but so often it seems all too hard – if indeed we have time to think about it at all. And that’s where the problem starts. For simplicity doesn’t just happen. In fact, without conscious, sustained effort focused on simplicity, the opposite – increased complexity – is almost certain to manifest itself.