What led you into design?
Drawing comics! It’s the first hobby I remember ambitiously pursuing, and everything else started from there.
Getting access to a computer at around the age of 11, I started animating these comics using MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker, and soon after, Flash. The interactivity that Flash offered then got me interested in making experimental websites and applications rather than linear movies. This was accompanied by learning basic coding and playing around with Photoshop and Illustrator, and not much later, I found myself supplementing my pocket money by creating sites for local businesses and selling resources online.
I then made the plan to study design after high school and work independently, and never moved away from that.
What does a typical day look like?
Unless I’m unusually busy, I like to start my mornings slow. This often means checking the news, emails, and side project usage stats at home over a coffee, but it can also mean going for a run or reading a book. This is where ideas come up and plans are made for later in the day.
In the late morning, I walk to my shared office space, and except for the usual lunch break with my coworkers, there’s no set schedule for the rest of the day. Designing, coding, meetings, administration—whatever is on the agenda.
The evenings are for seeing my girlfriend and friends, going out for dinner or a drink, going to movies or concerts, or recharging at home over cooking a nice meal.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
For random web design inspiration, I use my own gallery, collected.li. To find more specific examples of something, I mostly go to are.na these days.
However, the more unexpected ideas often arise when drawing inspiration from things that happen outside of the browser—books, movies, illustration, architecture, etc. Also, while I was never much of a gamer, I’m realizing more and more how the video games I did play as an adolescent influenced my creative approach.
The most inspired I feel when traveling, but unfortunately, that’s usually not an immediately actionable measure.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
I have a soft spot for website builders that challenge the conventional methods, and I’ve recently been excited about straw.page and mmm.page. Both incorporate playful interfaces that unify the conventionally separated content input and the visual output, using a canvas with drag-and-drop functionality and contextual overlay menus. This approach inspires more personal and unique results, which I’m a big fan of.
Another product I’m very excited about is the type tool by Burrow Lab, which allows for parametric font manipulation in the browser. It’s in a very early stage and only available as a demo for now, but I think it might have the potential to make creating typefaces more accessible to non-type designers.
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
I was recently involved in a research project called ARETE, which visualizes the history of the Latin alphabet in form of an interactive timeline. In addition to the research results, which must be a true goldmine for any type enthusiast, I am particularly proud of the interface we developed to make them accessible.
Staying on the topic of typography, I’m proud of the microsites I created to showcase my typefaces Scope and Fictional. They were lovely playgrounds to explore what can be done with type on the web these days. And speaking of pride, it’s cool to be responsible for every single part of a project, from designing the fonts over conceptualizing their presentation to building the website.
What design challenges do you face at your company?
It can be challenging for me to bring efficiency and the desire for exploring better solutions into harmony. I don’t think this can be called perfectionism—I don’t believe in perfection, and I am actually very pragmatic about many parts of the design process. But when it’s obvious to me there’s a better-suited direction right in front of me, while time or budget constraints clearly don’t allow for exploring that direction in depth, this can be hard to accept.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
Don’t get too obsessed with what seems to be the right way. Tools are aids: Use the ones that help you, in a way that helps you, and don’t let them dictate your process. Study other people’s work and processes, and look into what is considered the right approach, but only apply what works for you. Don’t let the perceived borders of your discipline hold you back.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
Always! I want to promote temper, which is a very simple website builder for personal sites, as well as my web design gallery collected, and my type foundry Jonas Type. Oh, and of course, my portfolio site that I recently redesigned.
Always happy to connect on Mastodon, Bluesky, Instagram, or LinkedIn, but definitely not on Twitter anymore.
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