About me
I am a creative and enthusiastic designer. I am critical and a good conceptual thinker. I am eager to learn and like to challenge myself. I design intelligent products and systems with innovative and intuitive interaction structures. I enjoy analyzing the complexity of our society to find opportunities for improvement. I involve the user in my design process in order to fully understand the social context I am designing for. I am curious about the influence of technology on our society and the effects it has on our social activities. I find inspiration in everything around me, but especially in kinetic art, geometric shapes, nature, and dance.
I followed a competency based education. This has taught me to constantly be aware of my personal development. My best skill, therefore, is self-directed learning. I have learnt to reflect on my abilities and direct my activities in order to develop my competency.
Social change
I design for societal transformation. My designs support the change from a current reality to a new one. Based on ethical aspects and a thorough analysis of the current situation I envision this new reality. In general I aim to improve people’s wellbeing. I believe good design empowers people to shape their own lives. This also means I ask them to take this responsibility. My designs help people improve their lives themselves. I try to guide them towards a healthier and more social lifestyle. I believe design should increase independence and confidence, design should support, guide and stimulate, design should enhance and intensify.
Approach
I practice the reflective transformative design process (RTDP, Hummels & Frens, 2008). This design process exists of five activities that take place within the societal setting, but without a specific order. By frequently switching between these activities each design process is unique and tailored to the designer and the challenge at hand. This supports flexibility and individuality and allows for innovation.
I intuitively switch between these activities of envisioning, exploring, analyzing, validating and making. I have a hands-on, experiential approach. I focus on early-on prototyping and physical sketching. Materializing ideas makes tacit things explicit and concepts communicable. It allows for the evaluation of interactive and intelligent concepts.