Creativity & Aesthetics

I have always been a creative person. Before I started with my bachelor I already loved to draw, sculpt and build things with wood or leather. During my bachelor I learned to use even more methods, like sewing, felting, knitting, crocheting and cardboard prototyping. I also learned to use more technical mediums like using Arduino in combination with processing, 3D- printing and embroidery machines.

Through studying industrial design, I have learned how to delve my creative ideas. I now have a variety of techniques that I can use to come up with ideas. In the courses exploratory sketching and exploratory making improved my skills in the taught media, but also learned how I can use them to ideate and to quickly explore different ideas.

Quick explorations of switches

Re-design of a gluegun

Through doing many projects I learned different ways to ideate like mind mapping, answering “how might we”-questions in a pressure cooker and 50 sketch challenges . I can share these techniques in a group process and engage team members from different disciplines into the design process.

50 Sketch Challenge

Pressure cooker

How might we- tree

Besides being able to generate creative ideas, I find it important that those ideas are presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The aesthetics of a product forms the first impression of the user. Therefore, it’s important that it the design looks attractive, coherent and communicates its function. During my bachelor, I have made several high-quality prototypes. In various extracurricular activities I have learned take good pictures, edit pictures, create promotional material, design logo’s, build websites and to make a visually appealing lay-out for a document. I have further improved those skills in making the layout for final reports.

Two pages of a website that I designed. They are for different exhibitions hosted by the same artist.

Pages of a document where I made the layout

User & Society

Users are the reason design exists. For a design to be successful, it should bring value and hold the ability to change users’ lives. I learned to use methods to gather relevant data, how to apply those methods to make sure that the data I gather is valid and to use the data I gathered to make design decisions.

In the course design<>research I created a design that served as a research probe for gathering data that was used to answer a research question. In project 3 I did a co-creation workshop to get user input for our final design. In the USE Learning Line I designed for the users and other stake-holders from a business point of view.

An abbreviated ladder was used to determine what values needed to be evaluated during user testing

Answers on one of the questions in a user study for Project 1

A pastel analysis was used to place the design for Duolingo in societal context

I have also designed to provoke thought to make humans aware of their choices and place in the world. In project 2 I made a speculative design that instigated humans to reflect on their place in the ecosystem.

In design for debate, I designed a fictional exhibition about a post-humanist designer who went on a quest to take a non-human or more-than human perspective. The aim was to provoke thought about whether we, as human beings, can every truly take a posthuman or nonhuman perspective.

During the course Design for Games and Play 2 I designed a game that used persuasion methods to convince players to make sustainable decisions.

I have seen how important it is to implement users in the design process, but also how design can influence the users and society.

Speculative design about the place humans have in the ecosystem

Part of the exhibition about a fictional post-humanist designer

The end-screen of a persuasive game

Technology & Realization

During my bachelor learned many ways of creating high-quality prototypes. I tend to gravitate more towards physical ways of making, like sewing, wood working or using recycled materials, but I have pushed myself to develop other methods as well.

Wooden prototype made for engineering design

Sewn garment made for Project 3

I developed a proper understanding of circuits, actuators, and sensors, and learned how to creatively implement them in a design by combining them with an Arduino. I learned the basics in the course creative programming, where I combined a teensy with a LED and a potentiometer. I used processing to let the orientation of the potentiometer control the LED and the visuals on my screen. After that I developed my skills further by integrating an Arduino and actuators into a cardboard model of a coffee machine, and by integrating LEDs and a heartbeat-sensor in a design for creative programming. I learned to design games with unity and how to build a website. In the course Digital craftmanship, I combined my passion for physical making with digital making by using data to inspire a design that was embroidered onto fabric by an embroidery machine.

Prototype with embroidered data visualization made for digital craftsmanship

Business & Entrepreneurship

I started developing my business and entrepreneurship expertise area later in my bachelor. But since then, I feel like it has become one of my stronger areas of expertise. During the IoT USE learning line I learned to combine design and engineering with internet of things technologies and group-based entrepreneurship. I went through the process of coming up with an idea to building a minimum viable product and testing it with users. We were constantly thinking about who would buy it, who will use it and who are my competitors. I learned to successfully navigate a multi-stakeholder process and gained an understanding of what intellectual property is, and how to deal with ethics surrounding businesses.

I further deepened this knowledge in the course design innovation methods where I worked in a group to analyze and design for a big company. We analyzed the values of the business, their products and services, their market segment, their intellectual property and designed a new service for them that would help expand their market and attract new users. I learned to develop business cases using market research and competitor analysis to create value propositions and to validate these business cases through real-life testing. I implemented this knowledge in an individual assignment where I had to treat one of my own designs as a business.

A persona was created for Duolingo to make the target market more concrete

A stake-holder union map used to identity the stake-holders that are involved when implementing a new function in the Duolingo App

A strategy map was used to identify gaps in the market and potential opportunities for innovation

During my time as chair of IDcate, I learned how to organize meetings and to organize activities for Lucid Members. Together with the other committee members I organized an educational trip to Ghent. At the beginning of our year, we sat together and formulated a vision and values. We used those values for determining what kind of activities we wanted to organize. This experience together with the things I did during design management gave me a basic understanding of what it means to run a business

Me and other members of one of the committees I have been a part of

In the course design management, I went through the process of creating and managing a company based on a set of core values and a vision. I now understand the strategic value of design within a business. In the course we designed a product together with a service and learned how to communicate our ideas to clients. Doing this course gave me an understanding of how positive societal design can be a driver for design. I see great value in my attitude, knowledge and skill in this area, because it allows me to design for complex company structures and to set up my own business in the future.

Math, Data & Computing

Different programming languages fit a different purpose. I have learned to use Arduino for making different prototypes, processing for the creation of visuals and python in Jupiter notebooks to analyze large datasets. When designing you often deal with realities that are usually complex. Math and data can be used to compute models that simulate reality. From data analytics I learned how to get useful insights out of big datasets and how to visualize and communicate those insights. I learned about the meaning of the mean the mode and the median. I learned how to compute the derivative and the anti-derivative and how and when to use them. I also learned about basic mechanics that are useful for having a basic understanding about what rules the world follows and that must be taken in account when designing a product. From the course making sense of sensors, I learned how to use sensors to collect personal data, and how to import it into a notebook to analyze the data. Being competent in math, data and computing enables me to efficiently communicate with people who are specialized in other disciplines than industrial design.

Past