Past

I was born in 1994 in Bergen op Zoom and grew up in Ossendrecht, near the Belgian border. After finishing Gymnasium at Het Juvenaat in Bergen op Zoom, I moved to Eindhoven, to attend the Technical University of Eindhoven, and see what all this “dutch design” fuss is about.

Since I was young, I only wanted to be one thing when I grow up: Inventor. Sadly, it turned out that inventor isn’t really an actual occupation, so I had to settle for the next best thing: Industrial Designer. Eindhoven seemed to be the perfect place to start. I need an amount of freedom in order to find my way in the world, but I also noticed I need guidance to have to wisdom to take a step back at the right moment to reflect and plan ahead.

 

Bachelor

I started the Bachelor program of Industrial design in 2012, this took me three and a half years to complete. It turned out calculus wasn’t my strong suit, I could only start the process of graduating after I finally finished calculus, and due to unlucky timing, this left me with a semester where I only followed a calculus course, that I finished in the first quartile. Because of a healthy “fake it till you make it” attitude and a lot of luck, I acquired a contract to create the website of BigMove, a healthcare company in Amsterdam. Up to this point, all my design experience was confined in the safe walls of the TU/e. This was the first time I got to work in the “real world” and I got to apply everything I learned about design and user focus to the new-to-me world of webdesign and development.

 

OWOW

With this experience under my belt, I went to OWOW to apply for an internship. Their musical know-how spoke to me, and they needed someone to develop a data driven orchestra and a few websites, perfect for me. After the internship I stayed in close contact with OWOW, and I got to experience more and more how to take the lead on a project, eventually also leading others to collaborate on a project. Letting go of a project and dividing it up was the hardest thing for me to learn, but the excellent guidance and atmosphere at OWOW, combined with the simple fact that I did not have enough time to do all the work on my own, made short work of this. I feel this has matured me as both a designer and an entrepreneur.

 

BasB Design

Further developing this entrepreneurial spirit, I started my own company in Q3 of 2016. BasB Design is my excuse to take up as many interesting projects as I can on the least amount of sleep I can stand. From prototyping to 3D CAD design to websites to packaging design to typesetting, I tried as many things that piqued my interest as possible.

 

Master

Of course, not all of this was as easy as this text makes it seem, there was a lot of stumbling and getting up. The hardest objective for me was to divide my time between work and study. The work I was doing was fun, but realistically I wouldn’t be able to live from it if i added it all up. I needed to explore further what I actually wanted to be doing later, so I started the Industrial Design Master program, with the overarching goal being: to find out how I can turn what is now basically a hobby into a living and take this opportunity to add a unique scientific basis to my skillset, in search of that edge over the competition.

It is unlikely that I get the possibility to dive this deep into research again so what came out of my FMP always had to be something i could launch a career from.

 

TU/e

Below are all projects, assignments and electives that made the development I made as a student, designer and entrepreneur possible. I included the deliverables and separate reflections if they weren’t already included.

 

Master

M1.1
BBeacon – Responsive Environments	Report
DEM113 – Design Innovation Strategies	Presentation
DHM310 – Constructive Design Research	Poster	Reflection
M1.2
Ambient-Mapping – CRIGS	Report	Reflection
DAM110 – Activating your Innovation Radar	Report
M2.1/M2.2
Growth	Report under NDA
DDM110 – Design for behavioral change	Report	Reflection

 

 

Bachelor

B1.1
Froque – Will-o-the-Whisp Wandering	Report
DG101 – Cardboard Modeling	Poster 2	Poster 2
DG605 – Sound Design	Reflection
B1.2
Pablob – Smart Sleep	Report
DG104 – Panamarenko	Report
DG308 – Discrete Interaction Design	Report
B2.1
Loopende Band – GMIS	Report
DG123 – Making Materials	Report
DG409 – Design for the Environment	Reflection
B2.2
Print ‘n Press – Crafting Stories	Report
DG622 – Exploring Intuitive and Aesthetic Interaction	Reflection
DG703 – Complexity through Simplicity	Report	Reflection
B3.1
Internship	Report
B3.2
E-Xplore – Design for Creatives	Report
DAB911 – Exploratory Sketching	Reflection
DEB913 – Designing Tangible Business Models	Report	Reflection