Design has been a passion of mine from a young age. I wasn’t the type of kid who build LEGO models to play with them. I was playing by building and tearing down previous builds to redesign and rebuild. I really liked applying my creativity to education and leisure as well. After I did a high school internship with product designers, I decided to pursue design in a professional career, starting with the bachelor’s degree Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Enthusiasm and creativity are elements that characterize me. I seek a balance between user-centred and data-driven approaches to develop original and meaningful solutions. I prepare before I act, because without structure I tend to lose focus of the bigger picture. However, this is also where one of my weaknesses lies, since I can get stuck in the planning phase for too long. Therefore, I search for a balance between thinking and doing.

I find purpose in my designs when they are directly implementable in society. I do this by focusing on practical applications while creating accessible designs that are open to a broad audience. Additionally, I’m driven by fun design. I create a personal sense of fulfilment when I contribute to bringing joy and humour into people’s lives. I’m especially excited about designing for entertaining experiences. Therefore, my goal is to craft for experiences that feel meaningful, accessible and enjoying.

I am familiar with physical and digital prototyping methods. For creating prototypes, I make use of wood and plastic material processing trough laser cutting and moulding. I convey ideas and concepts with digital visualization tools of Adobe, like Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign and Premiere Pro. I create custom objects using the 3-dimensional workspace of Fusion 360 and 3d printing. Lastly, I create interactive systems using Arduino circuits. By using these tools, I make sure to validate the practical applications of my designs.

I am socially inclined and a real team player. Therefore, I have a strong preference for a collaborative team setting during projects. This allows me to optimally perform in ideation processes. Additionally, having team members helps me in decision-making, working efficient and staying concentrated. I listen to different perspectives to build further on input from others, and I am good at identifying areas for improvement. I enjoy sharing my skills with others and providing support wherever necessary. I find it harder to ask for help myself, but I actively work on this by structurally scheduling sessions for ideation and peer feedback. Within teams, I take on flexible roles. I enjoy leading because I like motivating people and creating a positive group atmosphere. Taking the lead also pushes me to stay efficient and organized, which counteracts my chaotic personality. I am also comfortable in other roles, as this allows me to structurally develop a specific part of a project.

I have also gained a lot of extracurricular experience through which I developed additional soft and hard skills, which add to my competence as designer. During years of voluntary work and employment I have build up a strong sense of responsibility and perseverance, and I learned how to position myself in large-scale projects. I can adapt to different organizational cultures, and I learned to manage many expectations from co-developers around me.