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Looks like you are looking for an experienced creative designer with a 14+ year track record in turning complex ideas into simple solutions.
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Creativity wholly goes misunderstood. I want to change that. The Global Creativity Index is a data-driven gauge of how people around the world approach problem solving. By scoring core creative traits, we can convert the often abstract idea of “creativity” into clear numbers that can be tracked, compared, and improved. After all, creativity is just problem-solving but with different spelling.
Weta Digital Assitant Technical Director 2012 - 2014 wetafx.co.nz
Currently reading
CAPS LOCK, Ruben Pater, 2021
So, how can I help?
I cover the full spectrum of design, from early strategy and core research to final production-ready specs. I also bring extensive experience in running workshops, conducting user interviews, and leading design reviews.
What can I do for your project or full time? Have a browse!
Key career outcomes
Over the years, I’ve had plenty of experiments, missteps, and learning moments.
So here are a few things that actually worked.
VKCI Amsterdam Co-founder 2024 vankesselcreativityindex.com
Every great idea starts with you. A tool and framework for growing, building and enhancing the creative spirit.
Welcome to the VAN KESSEL CREATIVITY INDEX // The guide to unlocking your creative superpowers
As a founding member of Van Kessel Creativity Index, together with Roosmarijn van Kessel, I contributed across multiple areas to bring the project’s vision to life. My work focuses on shaping the creative framework, building its content, and ensuring the assessment accurately reflects the users answers, everything really! (Also, cheekily, I came up with and insisted it on the name!)
· I co-authored detailed descriptions of the four creative types - Seeker, Pioneer, Composer, and Connector - capturing their unique strengths and collaborative potential. My work emphasised the individuality of each type while showcasing their team dynamics.
· I collaborated (with a number of people) on crafting the 42 assessment questions and the logic that fuels the VKCI, ensuring they were grounded in research while remaining engaging and insightful for users. This involved structuring questions to accurately identify creative strengths and align with individual problem-solving and collaboration styles.
· I conceptualised and designed the creative types' pages, blending aesthetics with clarity. My goal was to make the content interesting. Another goal is to make the website a mix of all the types together. I was not going to let it look like any other behavioural assessment, by becoming washed out by pages upon pages of text.
· I created workshop materials and presentations that introduce the VKCI. These resources focused on translating the insights of the index into actionable strategies for creative acceptance, team-building, and most importantly, personal growth.
· My involvement extended to shaping the story of the tool - highlighting its role in bridging miscommunication, unlocking potential, and fostering innovation. I (together with Roosmarijn) ensure the messaging is impactful, hits home with both creative individuals and professional teams, and most importantly makes sense.
The VKCI is very much part of my life and something that I completely believe in. I could talk about the need for this until the cows come home, but I wont.
Accruent Senior UX Designer October 2018 - December 2024 accruent.com
Accruent Amsterdam, Netherlands Senior UX Designer 2018 - December 2024 accruent.com
Enterprise software for managing everything from preventative maintenance to dissecting energy usage with more than 100,000 users world wide across all industries from higher education to the pharmaceutical manufacturing
Accruent Observe Energy Management
Consumption dashboard and personalisations
· Led a global team of designers, product owners, and stakeholders to create transformative experiences for customers across multiple products and industries.
· Served as the Lead Designer for AOEM, Meridian, VX Suite, and Data Insights, delivering outstanding designs that increased usability and wowed users around the world.
· Hosted innovation sessions, brainstorming new ideas and generating groundbreaking concepts to push the boundaries of what's possible.
· Created and hosted a company-wide monthly Design Review, fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity and inspiring colleagues to think outside the box.
· Developed a Voice of Customer initiative, including templates and processes for gathering customer information and distilling it into useful data packages that drove strategic design decisions.
· Utilised iterative design principles and roadmap planning to make strategic design decisions that drove business results and created a consistent user experience across products.
· Documented and trained others on newly designed processes, ensuring that the design standards were met, and consistency was maintained throughout the organisation.
· Leveraged a deep understanding of user behaviour and technical expertise to create stunning designs that translated across platforms, including web, mobile, and emerging technologies.
Accruent Observe Energy Management
Averages, meter reading and consumption drill down. Facility monitoring
MMERCH (Freelance) Amsterdam - New York Concept design, look development 2022 mmerch.xyz
Concept design and look development for Non-fungible Fashion brand mmERCH
Task
Work closely with founder Colby Mugrabi on how to display generatively created images of unique hoodies. Using patterns by co-designer Roosmarijn van Kessel.
We spent 4 months working day and night to help develop the first generation of her vision. Working on how to create a personal look and feel for the products that would be inviting and futuristic feeling.
Although my work (see below) was not used as the final product I am extremely proud of the work we did collaboratively to push Colby and team to what they have achieved today.
MASS UX/UI Designer 2017 - 2018 mass.design
MASS (Freelance) Amsterdam, Netherlands UX/UI Designer 2017 - 2018 mass.design
Product for an AR environment showcasing the Principality of Monaco for tourism and property development demonstrations.
Problem
Navigating a large 3D space with multiple layers of information
Solution
With placing layers of information hidden and selectable and activated through a press sensitive pop up menu it unclutters and naturally splits groups of content together, all the Hotels in one, Bars + Restaurants in another. By overlaying the content on the screen surface and also placing it in the 3D space I was able to separate the content into physical and informational areas – using the natural association for the user to what is physical and what’s not.
Scape
Focus Mode
Problem
Creating and editing a presentation using a digital model
Solution
We solved this by developing a workflow similar to how you would shoot angles and note comments on a real physical object. By using the 3D model the user moves around the model finding the right shots and tags that location in the 3D space. Using an editing tool I designed the user adds text, video or interactive content (mostly using templates) to space which then becomes part of the slide. The user repeats this for each slide of the presentation. Transitions of the slides are managed by a camera on rails moving between the location tags when selected to move forward a slide. This itself is a standalone tool.
Scape
Visualisations
Business Knowledge UX/UI Designer 2007 - 2012 > 2014 - 2018 bkl.co.nz
Business Knowledge New Zealand - Remote UX/UI Designer 2007 - 2012 > 2014 - 2018 bkl.co.nz
Small, medium and large business planning, strategy and accountancy. Check out those old iMacs!
Problem
Clients late on returning Annual Return and other required documents
Solution
Sending documents through snail mail isn’t the most efficient way to do business. Clients would lose, misplace and be late returning them constantly. Now with the more widespread use of PDFs (knowledge of how they work and ability to digitally sign) we moved to a PDF based document system. This also has the benefit of reducing the endless ink and postage costs. Also using automatically generated emails to follow up on late replies. Through using this PDF system we have improved the efficiency of document generation and reduced lateness and missed billing time.
Problem
Finding current projects for Client groups across multiple databases
Solution
Creation of a linked centralised ‘control’ layout. Using Hick’s Law as the principle (with a date and priority based Filemaker calculation) to show what the most important tasks for the user that day. From this homepage layout the users are able to prioritise and itemise their workload allowing for more efficient billing and time management practices.
