April 3, 2025
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3 min
As a Creative Director and Partner at TodayTomorrow, I enjoy it when our products play a significant supporting role in a person's health. My passion also strongly lies in branding, where I constantly seek the point where a company's mission and the needs of its target audience intersect. When this essence is captured in an app, technology can truly be magical.
I am a great admirer of the self-checkout at Albert Heijn. The checkout is full of beautiful design choices that make the payment process smooth. The highlight is the moment when the receipt disappears from the screen and physically rolls out of the machine. The transition from digital to physical is truly beautifully designed.
At every small obstacle in life, my reflex is to immediately come up with a digital solution. In my mind, I’m already designing a prototype and thinking of a business model. I belong to a technocratic generation that believes everything can be solved with an app. I sometimes wish I could switch off that mode.
Oh, I’m full of digital annoyances haha. One thing I find unbelievable is that there are still websites that don’t work well on mobile. Come on. Everyone has one of those things in their pocket, the technology is available, so there’s really no excuse not to make it nice and responsive.
Plus: the government’s message inbox is really impossible to get through. Why do I always have to first answer whether I also want to receive mail from the municipality of Lutjebroek? (no, of course not!) And then, after 100 clicks, when I open a message, 9 out of 10 times it’s a PDF that’s impossible to view on mobile. Such poor service gives the impression that the government doesn’t care about its users: the citizens.
I grew up in Haarlem, the most beautiful suburb of Amsterdam. After some experiences in Sweden, Shanghai, and Frankfurt, I returned to the Netherlands and settled in Rotterdam. I now live there with my wife, daughter, and Kees the cat in a crazy cube house.
I studied Communication Multimedia Design in Amsterdam. Digital design was still in its infancy back then, much more experimental than it is today. After my studies, I sold my soul to advertising. It was a dynamic and exciting time, but the fleeting nature of it started to bother me. That’s when I reached out to the design agency Fabrique, where I had the chance to work with the best people in our field for major brands both locally and internationally. But when TodayTomorrow came my way, it was love at first sight. I had never worked with a team where design and development collaborated so harmoniously.
My strength lies in capturing the essence and finding a form that is effective. I avoid complicated concepts and aim for a direct visible impact with my designs. Colours, typography, and animations have subtle nuances that can make the difference between an ordinary product and one that deeply resonates with people. Mastering these elements is my specialty.
I draw a lot of inspiration from architecture. Just like in cities, as a user of a digital product, you want to be able to navigate freely in an environment where you feel comfortable and safe. That’s why I like to see my projects as digital spaces that seamlessly integrate into people's daily lives.
I would really like to build my own house someday. Design it entirely myself and then build it with a few skilled professionals by my side. It will be a house with a frame made of Douglas wood—it smells so nice.
As a child, I was crazy about dresses. Together with my sister, we loved to dress up and put on dance performances for our parents. However, that love for dresses was abruptly interrupted when I decided to wear a dress to kindergarten. It turned out there was a difference between boys' and girls' clothing.