Present

 

Project

Realising my FMP project is quite unorthodox for the study of Industrial Design at the TU/e, I think I was able to apply my knowledge amassed in the study at a lot of stages. Applying frameworks to the planning of this project and the way clients can interact with it give the platform a strong base to stand on. Not only does this provide value to the design process, I found that it also helps me justify decisions I made throughout the project. Clients appreciate a scientific approach and I found that it helps me in directing the focus of a project toward the focus at that point. I could combine these methods with the way of thinking I learned over the past years of study and hard skills like sketching, graphic design and web development. Ultimately resulting in a project I stand behind and will be an innovation in the field of online optimisation and presence.

The process around this platform involved multiple iterations, enabling me to keep tweaking the formula throughout. Being a relatively adapt graphic designer and web developer, it was easy enough for me to produce examples that could be applied am reflected upon. The work with API’s stayed relatively superficial, but preliminary research into it did help shape the platform as proposed. Other projects allowed me to stay hands-on and will continue to be my main tool to develop interest and skill in the creation of prototypes and installations.

Developing the Growth platform this deep in the market was new for me, the real world consequences of me actually doing my job well was a great motivator, but admittedly also was the source of a lot of stress. Being in the market with one leg during all phases of the project at time made it hard to keep up with the documentation of all information I was receiving, but the amassed experience was priceless to this project. An important lesson learned here is that it is extremely important to take a step back at times to have a look at what passed and take the time to document and implement this. Obviously this is not a new idea, but it was a very prominent experience in this specific project.

 

This semester I got the opportunity to work with larger audiences than I ever expected, and I notice that a structured approach, rooted in tools I learned to use both in business and in study, give me an edge. A large body of work, like setting up an advertising campaign, doesn’t become an monumental enterprise, but a series of smaller tasks that are manageable and even dividable to a larger team. Creating the platform into a consulting service became the heart of the Platform, as it allows for the platform to stay dynamic easier, without needing the enormous expenditure of creating systems in-house. Optimising the platform to efficiently be developed in the near future, combined with running my own venture and client work for OWOW; allowed me to learn a lot about communication in the business world. I feel confident in my ability to not only work on an idea conceptually, but orient it towards a market and work on making it profitable in order for the project to stay alive beyond initial investment.

As mentioned to me by both my coaches and client, this is probably the only time in my professional career where I can take this amount of time to dive this deep into a project. Even though a scientific approach seems to be appreciated, two semesters is not an amount of time that typically gets allotted by a company to start a project. This makes that fact that the project is getting picked up and developed further that much more valuable to me. The research in this project, that I believe is solid, is going to form an important part of the start of my professional career at OWOW and gives me a lot of hope for the near and distant future.

 

Expertise

I have tried to integrate the areas of expertise (or competencies as i always knew them) as much as possible in my development as a designer. They are closely connected, even inseparable, in my experience, which makes pointing to concrete actions to develop them impossible, but they provide a structure for me to reflect within.

 

Creativity and Aesthetics

Graphic design introduced me to this area of expertise. In the study it is fairly standard to work on making reports and posters look good, and I link to think I do a good job ad that. I started the master well equipped within this subject due to my interest in print work (SLANG magazine, Print ‘n Press).

Moreover however, I have a strong preference for functional design that I try to reflect in my own work. The look of an object is determined by how it can be used while presuming as little as possible about the user to allow for individual exploration by users.

In the creation of websites there is less of this “form follow function” mentality, simply because it is not limited by the physical, this is where experience and other experts come in to make well founded decision based on past and documented experience.

 

Technology and Realisation

Throughout my career as industrial design student, this was the first subject I was interested in. From a young age i have been interested in making prototypes, instruments, mockups and much more. Electives such as Making/Materials and Carboard Modeling and my Print ‘n Press project also got me very interested in how object can and should be made. On the electrical side, Industrial design introduced me to the Arduino very quickly, which since only grew into more complex projects such as the Data Orchestra and the Neurotransmitter 3000. This expertise has become something I do professionally and plan to continue doing in the foreseeable future.

 

User and Society

Initially, getting a grasp on users was very hard for me, inspiring me to take a number of electives on it: Constructive Design Research, Design for behavioral change, Discrete interaction design, etc. What made the difference for me however, was getting into the market. As soon as I got to work on products that would actually have to convince clients and users, the importance of this expertise became apparent to me. User feedback was very important to my client and it reflected on how I do my work now, I try to not let anything leave my bench or desktop without having shown it to a third party first.

During the master I exhibited at the DDW (over 5 projects) , STRP Biënnale, Exact live, TEDx, Ars Electronica Festival, Paleis Soestdijk, and assorted locations troughout the Netherlands. I got to meet hundreds of people there, and while this usually wasn’t product oriented, it certainly was experience oriented. I tried to let the general consensus shape the project as much as possible after each iteration, giving me more insight in how a project is perceived.

 

Business and Entrepreneurship

I also followed a bunch of projects in this expertise area, Design Innovation Strategies, Activating your Innovation Radar, Designing Tangible Business Models, the Open Innovation track. I did my work and learned a lot from it. Time after time again it confirmed that there are so many good ideas around, and making them profitable is an entirely different story.

Again, moving to the real market is what made the largest difference for me here. Starting my own company and working for many clients trough OWOW increased the importance of a good business strategy by so much that that leaving it behind simply wasn’t an option. This combination of entrepreneurship and employment allowed me to experience a wide range of business management, valuable and relevant to me.

Over the past year, I have become heavily involved with online marketing strategies of OWOW and their clients. Seeing and working with the strategies these clients have on the sometimes incredible scale they are working on is a privilege and something I learn from every day.

 

Math, Data and Computing

My main experience with this area of expertise is the online world. With the volumes I sometimes get to work at in my job, it simply isn’t an option to just throw something at the wall and see what sticks. Past research and experience dictate how certain tasks are approached.

This semester also brought along the need to work on implementing a scientific structure within my approach as a web designer and developer. Calculating when a task can be called significant is something I immediately got to apply in my day to day pursuits. Instead of only having to rely on what I intuitively think when seeing data, I can prove conclusions to both myself and my clients.