A month ago, I talked with someone from the Minor DaVinci, a course about creative entrepreneurship following the prinicples of Saras Sarasvathy. He, with two other classmates, started a business called Local Bugs; cultivating grasshoppers for human consumption. He asked me what I was doing and I began to talk about my bamboo design products and now I was looking for a company that could cut out...

Last week I finished a business card for a friend of mine, Christa Emmerink. She finished her 'Masters of Music' in Utrecht as a harpist.  

How do you make a business card for a musician? Is it the instrument they play that defines them or is it more than that? I began to search for the question behind the question: what makes her unique from other musicians and harpists? There was one word t...

The Hanze Ontwerpfabriek is moving to a new location and they asked me if I could make a design for it. Today I started building a concept, one of my favorite things in the design process. A concept always shows what is truely important for the space that's going to be altered. While I worked on the concept there were three spaces: hall, open space and closed space. Within these spaces I found a p...

I finished the prototype for a cardboard lamp and I went to show it again to my client Matthijs. It's great to see how a model made out of paper actually comes to life when it's actually hanging in a space. 

Dear reader,

Today I received my bachelor diploma at the Hanzehogeschool Groningen. I can now call myself an engineer (ing.). I always thought that when you studied for something and finally received your diploma you knew who you were, and you are able to say: "trust me I am an engineer". In the last few months I've learned that  it's not the profession what defines you but rather the passions an...

Today I went to see Matthijs for the bamboo lamp I'm going to make for him. I've met him at Startup weekend and he was the one who asked if I could make a bamboo lamp to hang over the new table he bought. In the beginning I was a little bit hesitant because I never made a lamp in my life before. It's not something I've been taught at the build environment college. Here there was someone who believ...

Today I finished my logo for my business cards. It always seems that making something nice for others is easy. When you have to make something for yourself it gets hard. All the quesitions you ask others you have to ask them yourself. I began to look what is it I always seek in my design processes.  

1. I look and believe in simplicity: a clean soft and elegant look. 

2. I sear...

Last year I participated at Startup Weekend Groningen. An event where teams are formed and within three days a business is generated. The kick off starts at Friday night when pitches are held till the following Sunday night where a group of judges choose the beste three startup businesses.

I held a terrible first pitch in my life on bamboo constructions. I was never a public speaker. Talking i...