My Development as a designer
Towards my FMP
Team IGNITE & Hypar Collective
Team IGNITE and Hypar Collective were both unmissable in development as a designer and a developer with multiple competencies. Activities like these were part of the reason I chose Industrial Design at the TU/e instead of Delft or Twente. TU/e always gave a lot of room for electives or extracurricular activities and the focus on self-directed learning was a very important thing for me as I always knew I wanted to take the developer route instead of becoming a classic product designer.
Team IGNITE and Hypar Collective served as a playground for me to be able to design for value and actual outcomes. For me, academic design felt very much like homework assignments which are created but then never worked out more, due to disinterest, lack of time or just lack of a further goal. When a deadline for a university project was met, it was connected with too many negative thoughts disabling me from furthering these projects. Hypar Collective was for me a way to apply my combination of competence in design and software development to create actual outcomes in the world, visible for everyone to see.
This was also a way for me to assess myself against my peers in my abilities as a software developer. As I'm a designer first and a developer second, I didn't have a way to see where I was ranking in my skills as a developer which was important to me as I wanted to see how much I still needed to grow. But, my time at Hypar Collective has taught me that creating together and showing our results is what matters most, while development and skill will automatically follow.
Creating value and showing it to the world is where my passion lies and is what makes me happy every time we build up an installation. I love the way all the hard work of everyone cumulates into one big project outcome and it creates a feeling of pride and happiness for me. Due to this I have met many like-minded people and helped set up light installations across the world, including Japan.
I have worked on Light Installation projects in the Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania and Japan.
Focus on AI, mathematics & data
I always knew I wanted to be a software developer and my interests in AI were growing a lot. I knew that if I wanted to show my skills here I needed to grow more in these specific skills. Therefore I chose to do an exchange in Tsukuba, Japan, where I focused on Kansei Design, Artificial Intelligence, mathematics and statistics. These courses were very intensive for me as I lacked a lot of foundation knowledge of mathematics and algebra. However, due to my interest in both topics, I was able to quickly get on track and this resulted in me learning a lot of these topics, which has allowed me now to design more with confidence.
Focused Electives
As opposed to my bachelor’s, throughout my entire master's, I have chosen specific electives to support my final identity and vision which match my interests. During my bachelor's, I was still very much in an exploration phase, while in the master's, I really wanted to focus my courses on my core interests and this shows in the results I was able to get. These courses were a few of the most interesting I followed during my time at the TU/e:
All of these courses match up with my intended learning path and it feels to me as if I am tying all the loose knots I still had in my core competencies and this together with my thoughts on the physicalisation of data, is what allowed me to focus on my FMP.
From then to now
Final Master Project
As mentioned, I have selected those specific electives to support me in my growth as a digital and tech designer. This combination of electives and extracurricular activities is what allowed me to work on OKUYA in the way that I did. In my FMP, I wanted to show my development in my own interpretation of Aesthetics on data & AI.
Technology and Realisation
As it is my core competency, I have focused a lot of my time to further develop my skills in this area during my entire studies. In all of the projects I worked on during the master's, I made sure to focus on the realisation of products and not leave them as a concept only which helped my confidence a lot. The dynamic of working in software development and studying design is that I could apply skills learnt in both areas, which was a great boost to my development. Activities like the Difficult Things committee, work at byFlow, as well as Hypar Collective allowed me to experience intense growth. Now I'm able to quickly create fully integrated working prototypes to test concepts and ideas. When looking back at 6 years ago, I am amazed at my development in T&R as I'm now proficient in:
Business and Entrepreneurship
During my master's, I focused less on B&E courses as I realised that I was currently not interested in the concepts that they offered. I had followed the Design Innovation Strategies course, but I didn't feel connected with the course as upselling with providing more value was seen as a positive thing in the course, which directly opposes my vision as a designer and individual. Instead, I focused on stakeholder management and communication with companies during my FMP and Hypar Collective.
Math, Data and Computing
My focus in my master's was on Data and AI, which meant a great development in M,D&C. My electives in Japan were Practical Data Science, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition and Information Practices, which I had all finished with Excellent+ results. These courses extended my practical and theoretical knowledge of statistics, data processing and artificial intelligence models and made me feel confident to create effective AI models for courses on the TU/e. Now, I feel confident in my ability to prototype and design with AI responsibly and effectively.
Creativity & Aesthetics
In the last two years, I had my greatest development in C&A. After choosing electives and experiences, it seemed to click for me how to interpret aesthetics in the context of tech, data and AI. Before, I was still very much focused on the visual aspect of aesthetics and couldn't get familiar with the concept. However, the courses mentioned previously, specifically Creativity and Aesthetics of Data & AI, taught me that aesthetics, as well as art for that matter, is very much a mindset or core concept behind a project or idea. For my aesthetical interpretation of data and its physicalisation, Yasuhiro Chida, whom I was blessed to meet in Finland and Japan, was pivotal in my development.
User and Society
I focused on combining User and Society with Creativity and Aesthetics during my master's and seeing how I could provide value for society by implementing my envisioned aesthetical concepts in projects. With AI now getting smarter, it's more important than ever to be responsible with the designs I create as society is already getting scared of the power of AI. During OKUYA development, I needed to look closely at the user's environment and learn what users want from the interaction.
Professional Skills
While the courses at the university focused on my development in identity and vision, Hypar Collective focused on developing my professional skills as a designer. As mentioned, the work done here is not focused on one-off deliverables but only exists for us to show our passion for Light Art. Working in a team of 11 people has taught me many things about project management and collaboration as well as where I can provide value in a team.
Professional Identity
This year, as I'm moving forward to the professional industry, I want to explore my professional identity on another level than I did previously. I wanted to find out more about where I gain energy from in my work and the tasks I do. I noticed a lot during certain stages of projects that I am fully drained after doing some tasks, while I could do others for hours on end. The latter is attached to tasks and projects that I am proud of in the end and is what motivates me to further those projects. However, I was unsure how to continue exploring this space.
Therefore I scheduled a meeting with a personality coach to find out my driving forces and personality traits to prepare for professional work. Here, I found out that I love to do supportive work and empower the ideas of others to new levels. One big pain point for losing energy is making decisions, which I had noticed during a lot of previous projects as well, however, I hadn't seen the connection until now. When thinking back on how I handled certain projects, I tended to spend more time perfecting certain aspects of projects, while bigger decisions still needed to be made, and now I know why I tend to do this behaviour. With this in mind, I have a clearer idea of how and why I act certain ways and can plan for this behaviour ahead of time and get support from others to help with these tasks.
Vision
During the last few years, the biggest impact on my vision has been made by the experiences I have gathered. Especially experiences based in the light art industry where I was able to talk with artists who are working with similar themes. This is also where the idea of Aesthetics in data and AI became clear to me, and is now one of the driving parts of my vision and design style.
My vision has now progressed for me as a mindset that I can refer back to when I am working on a project to find a direction and aim. I have found that I find it difficult to get into the right mindset without the right people around me, so I have developed my vision around this feeling. Now every time I read my vision, I think back to the people I've met and the views we share on design principles and this gets me in the right mindset to continue the process. I've found that this works well for me and is a good solution for when I work alone.
Overall Growth
For a long time, I felt bad whenever I saw someone possess a skill I didn't have. I felt disappointed in myself and couldn't accept that I didn't have that skill. This has been my motivation for a long time to learn new skills and to grow my skill set. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing because it allowed me to be very broad with the skills I learned. However, I see now that it is fine to not be able to do everything and it is good to rely on others if they do possess that skill set. Some skills are just not meant for me to fully learn. While I would be able to get better in those skills through hard work, it is far better in my opinion to team up with people who enjoy relating activities as I do not myself. I think this has been one of the most important lessons I have learnt during my entire studies and means that I know have to draw my motivation from elsewhere. This is why I want to focus on tech specialisation and hone the skills I already possess.
I have seen again and again that I am able to provide solutions to technical challenges and can implement them. People have been coming to me with their cases and I have never turned someone down to aid them in creating a working solution as I get a lot of self-fulfilment when I can help someone make their concepts work from a technical standpoint. While I sometimes am too quick to say yes, I do get my energy and motivation from these activities and this is what is making me happy and is what I want to continue doing.
Plans for the future
Short term
My short-term plans are to finish up loose ends I have with some hobby projects I have lying around and clear my mind for the next chapter. During last semester, I have been actively looking for employment after my Master's and have been hired as a Technology Consultant at Netlight Amsterdam to use my skills as a software engineer and designer to design and develop new solutions in a variety of industries.
Longer term
My long-term plans are to now specialise more in software technology and become proficient in the industry. Due to my background in design, I will be able to leverage design methodologies to create innovative solutions to the challenges I will see during my work and need to learn more about to quick-changing tech landscape in the process.
To read my resulting Identity & Vision, see