What led you into design?
My father has never been one to sit still. He has always collected antiques, is an amateur gardener, likes to build everything with his hands, paints in oil, and plays in the theatre. It was with him as an example that I started my design journey.
I started with the classics: drawing and making music (playing the trumpet since I was 4). Soon, I found my own way: making pixel art for Habbo Hotel, high school party posters, and username banners for Call of Duty forums. Those banners paid for my first Photoshop license. I was 15 at the time.
A good high school teacher pointed me in the "official" design direction. I started my education at Sint Lucas Academy, where I discovered my love for graphic design. Watching too much Mad Men at the time made me want to get into advertising as fast as I could.
Maarten Ponjee, one of the few teachers who understood my aspirations, sent me to Amsterdam, the large city, for an internship in advertising. When I finished that internship, I knew this was it. So, after graduation, I started working in and around Amsterdam, doing graphic design, marketing campaigns, and mobile apps at agencies such as IceMobile, Your Majesty, and Present Plus.
Product design only started making sense to me when Present Plus was acquired by WeTransfer. Instead of launching a project and moving on to the next, we were nurturing a product, putting that extra time and energy into making it 110%. Going the extra mile and putting the effort into the details makes good products great.
What does a typical day look like?
Definitely not a 5 AM club member. I'm just a regular guy who drinks too much coffee, attends a few meetings a day, listens to feedback, and implements about half of it.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
I have many what I call mini-obsessions—fascinations that usually last about a week. Diving deep into all these tiny design things gives me extreme joy. Here's a short list of my current but mostly previous mini-obsessions:
- Italian product design movements from Milano, especially Danese from the '50s, and the Memphis group from the '80s. Also B-line!
- Collecting typography in Amsterdam
- The styling that Imruh Asha is doing for big brands is really dope and different.
- Shooting analog photos with my 45-year-old Pentax P30
- Everything typography at Ohnotype
- LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 album
- The art from Mr. Bingo, Sander Sturing, Willem de Haan, and Tommy Cash
- The light installations from Children of the Light
- The #MakersMonday by Studio Hagel
- Have you ever checked out Chinese cigarette packaging aesthetics?
- The super fun art direction from Mirka Laura Severa and Max Siedentopf makes me jealous.
- Perfecting my Kimchi recipe 2 kilos a time.
- Public Possession keeps delivering cool stuff.
- training myself to look at the world like Onno Blase and Jan Dirk van der Burg
- DEEWEE, the record label from Soulwax, consistently puts out the weirdest stuff
- At this moment, I'm into pickling.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
Notion's calendar app. Watch out for Notion, they're coming for your suite!
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
WeTransfer had a design mantra that everyone followed: "Design like you'd design for your mum". This principle became our most important guideline: keep it simple and understandable. I've always been proud that we've been able to apply this approach to a product that has over 85 million users a month.
Usability, design itself and simplicity were key factors in everything we did. The most common question I got when I mentioned that I worked at WeTransfer was: "So, what is there to design?". It's very simple to design something complex but extremely complex to design something simple. Or as Jony Ive said: “simplicity is not the absence of clutter, it’s the absence of complexity.”
Another project I'm still proud of is Volkshotel, which opened in 2015. They approached Your Majesty to design their website, and all they had was a brand book and the architect's maquette of the interior. At the time, hotel websites typically followed a chic, informative, and functional format. However, we decided to create a grid-based, playful, graphic-heavy, and modular website that broke away from the status quo in 2015.
The vision for the site was quite different from anything that had been done before, which led to significant doubts for us about whether we were on the right track. Once the photos, copy, and content arrived and the website was finished, everything fell into place. The website fits the hotel and it's vibe perfectly to this day.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
Invest in AI tools right now
AI won't replace you - but someone using it will. Learn what's possible, experiment often, and build your advantage while it's still early. This is the biggest technical change since the internet, bite off as much as you can chew.
Be candid
Say what you think. Ask for what you need. Good design thrives on honest feedback, not polite silence. Openness speeds things up, sharpens ideas and builds trust. Work hard and be nice to people. ;)
Think about your mental health
You’re still designing when you’re away from the screen. Rest sharpens your thinking. Touch grass. Talk to people. Go for coffee walks. Protect your energy.
Be stubborn about your vision, but flexible about the details
This is a famous quote from Jeff Bezos but it is essential in the world of digital products to achieve results. Once we have decided where we want to be, we shouldn't worry too much about how we're going to get there, as long as the goal is clear. The details matter greatly, but not as much as the vision itself. Flexibility means finding an acceptable solution and moving forward.
If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
First of all, shoutout to the Flodesk family. If you're considering diving into email marketing, explore everything Flodesk offers!
Next, I love shooting analog photos while traveling, so check out my photography on Exposure!
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