GROWTH
WORK
VISION
IDENTITY
VISION
At every level of design, from products, to organization and service, increasingly complex systems require working with what you don’t know. That is wat I enjoy as a designer, it sparks my curiosity. More importantly, our changing everyday world is inherently ambiguous: we live with uncertainties, most things have multiple possible meanings, and we ourselves -to some extend- bring about these changes. To me this ambiguity is a key part of design, and, designing [1].
A designer works within the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’. A space where we sense and negotiate ambiguities, reduce them or make use of them. I want my designs to explore this space and make users part of the exploration. What made me fall in love with design through the design of others, is that some products can make that space graspable. I believe this is where design has the most value and I want to design right there, where the real and imaginary collide.
Ambiguity can be confusing and frustrating, leading users to ignore an issue. With my designs, I want to make ambiguity intriguing, simply enjoyable and make users eager to find meaning. In my designs, I can suggest issues and perspectives without imposing solutions so users engage with the issues themselves. I think we have to learn to live with ambiguity, to want to know even if we know we won’t fully understand.
I strive to design simple, yet rich sensory experiences that evoke inquisitive ideas and insights. Something new, yet radically simple can give us this feeling of bewilderment, where the real and imaginary collide. If a design is simple enough, questions come inevitably. The experience is in the here and now, before rationalization. Beyond initial excitement, the experience provides a shared ground for dialogue.
In Muziekmagneet I found technology an excellent way to bring about this bewilderment in children and scientists alike. After a first ‘HUH?!’, every single person launched a bunch of questions at me. “What did you do with the magnet” “How does it work” “Can you control things other than music”. Questioning and reconceptualizing the role of developing technologies in our everyday can lead to more personal relationships between users and technology. [2]
I explore abstraction as a way to exploit ambiguity in a rich aesthetic design. By leaving out explanation and the creators intentions I emphasize experience first, enabling users of different sociocultural backgrounds to find their own interpretations.
Muziekmagneet emphasized the experience of music: ‘when do tones become music?’ or ’Why does this sound nice to me’. No words and no explanations, the bold graphics and sounds provided easy words to talk about rather abstract musical concepts like harmony or rhythm.
[1] Linse, C. (2017). Ambiguity at the heart of design work : Sensing and negotiating ambiguity in knowledge-creation work (PhD dissertation). KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2017. , p. 312.
[2] Gaver, William & Beaver, Jake & Benford, Steve. (2003). Ambiguity as a Resource for Design.
[3] Ishii, H., Lakatos., D., Bonanni, L. and Labrune, J. (2012) Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, Toward Transformable materials. MIT.
[4] Weiser, M. and Brown J.S. Designing calm technology. PowerGrid Journal, v.1.01, July 1996.
IDENTITY
I like to work in a design theme or in a context/environment where the real issue still needs to be defined. In a process where curiosity comes first I function best: I can switch between observation and analytical thinking to surgically identify what it is that needs to be designed for, while it takes creativity and hands on exploration to open up the complexity of a problem to others.
During my final bachelor I became interested in design solutions that merge the digital and physical. In this context I developed skills in application development, data visualization and graphic design to communicate concepts and realize unorthodox interfaces.
While I can efficiently learn skills on my own, I work best in collaboration with users and experts, as a sounding board for ideas and theories that are not fully developed. To make them part of my process I prefer to use visuals over text and I work with design sketching, mixed media (digital and tangible), digital fabrication techniques and experience prototypes.
I can easily join and follow different perspectives and recognize someone’s strength. By working in many different teams I developed this flexibility into a role where I can bridge the gap between people with software, social and creative backgrounds. My growth in TR, MDC and US have been important to speak their language and to develop the realization skills required to merge their ideas together in a concept and prototype.
Visual thinking comes natural to me, allows me to be bold, and I can effectively and quickly translate the key values of a concept into an aesthetic, a visual narrative that emphasizes its novelty. I enjoy creating a brand story around a design, whether product, research or fiction.
I would like to become a designer that can bring art, science and technology together through research and experimentation.