AbsoluteB.com

I consider myself to be a versatile and flexible designer. Given the opportunity, I love designing from scratch and being allowed to create what I believe to be the most suitable, functional and most beautiful solution possible. On the other hand, I equally enjoy the challenge of taking strict project specifications and requirements and translating them into a product that a client and look at, experience and touch. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to work on both ends of the spectrum. While I had plenty of freedom designing for clients within NASCAR and Volvo Cars, I have had to follow strict guidelines while designing for clients including the Dutch Ministry of Justice and various Dutch municipal organizations. So when I’m asked about my style of design, I tend to find it difficult to convince people that I don’t really have a main style. Yesterday during my long drive back to Groningen from Den Haag, I gave this element of my skill base a lot of thought.

While I don’t have any one specific style base, I do draw inspiration from many different sources and I do enjoy creating modern, eye catching, highly detailed and unique designs. I’m someone who understands usability, GUI design and design standards and I’ll be the first person to see how many of those can be altered or even thrown out the window in order to achieve something that’s a one of a kind without compromising usability.

I enjoyed creating designs for the NASCAR fan demographic; being given the freedom to design complex, eye catching and exciting graphics. However, I equally enjoyed designing the complex UI for Dimpact!, an online application which was designed to be used by municipal employees to provide citizens with any of the hundreds of digitized products and services upon request.

I guess what it all comes down to is that my style of design really depends on what is required and demanded. No two clients will ever be the same and nor should two designs. Ideally I always hope that the client trusts my judgment and experience in what I believe to work best, but ultimately, giving the client exactly what they want is the main talent and goal any designer should aim for. Design trends change all the time and on top of that, usability, loading times, SEO, cross platform/browser compatibility, etc all influence this, but more that influencing the design, I think these things influence the client which requires people like me to have to keep up and on top of these trends.

The current AbsoluteB.com didn’t just take into account that my portfolio didn’t appear to have as many clean Euro-style designs as there were Americanized/in-your-face designs, but also that things have changed, and I’m starting to see this trend slide over even to companies and organizations who once required mind numbing excitement in their designs.