Work
KLIF is a Serious Game about conspiracy thinking and online misinformation. Made for young people, the game offers an immersive look into the world of a teenager who loses herself more and more in conspiracy thinking.
Players must find out what happened to a young student who seems to have disappeared without a trace overnight. To do this, they gain access to her laptop and can search through numerous photos, videos, emails and other documents. Little by little, players construct a full story of what happened.
By playing the game, students gain a better understanding of how you can be tempted into conspiracy thinking, what the consequences of this can be, and how you can deal with this as an environment.
By designing multiple app interfaces and a consistent visual language, an abstract computer interface came together. The game is currently being tested at high schools in the Netherlands.
Warped backgrounds hinting at a warped reality? Check.
The password is 'password'.
Lots of thinking faces playing KLIF. :-)
As KLIF is mainly to be played in classrooms, designer Nick Lutgerhorst and I designed a digital-first teacher manual.
Teenagers are never to be trusted. They're full of disinformation, alternative facts and fake news.
I'll never say no to designing some icons.
Client
Development
Design
Identity
Prototyping
Iconography
Visual design
Interaction design
Information structure
Teacher manual w/ Nick Lutgerhorst
Process & strategy
Project management
Digital strategy consultation
The actual site
Parta
Currently working on — We make better decisions together.
Vincent van der Werf
2024 – Everything starts with electricity
Klif
2021 — A serious game about conspiracy thinking and online misinformation.
RUFF
2021 — Vegan Burger Fun, delivered.
Studio Natuurlijk
2019 — Take a chill pill. Or follow proper yoga classes. I’d go for the second option.
Go Short
2017 — Finding structure in a festival line-up comprised of 264 films.
Eurofiber – 2021
Eurofiber has been a provider of industry-leading digital infrastructure since 2000. Together with the crew at iO, I redesigned their site.
Eurofiber has many products, which I wanted to present elegantly. No hamburger buttons. Through the new mobile menu, users are able to quickly orient around their many offerings.
I see you looking at that cursor, thinking, "it can't be that big, right?". And you're correct about that. It's fake. But the funnel supporting different sized organisations isn't.
Kapitaal — 2020
They said Helvetica, black and white. We gave them Helvetica, black and white.
Through information architecture, we kept the navigation structure simple as pie. Or hamburger, in this case. Sorry, designer jokes.
Scrolling through pages that contain buttons makes labels act funny. Because, why not be a bit forceful about booking a screen printing table?
It is always fun to pretend to work with Ramon & Carlien.
Project with Carlien Peijsel & Ramon Goedvree. Development by Rik Frieling.
No Seat at the table — 2020
No Seat at the Table is an online platform to exchange stories of gentrification, the housing crisis and the need for spatial justice.
The original bird illustration is created by Rajab Eryigit.
For this site, we created some fancy shmancy intro animations and different ways to discover stories of gentrification.
Do you see that? No hamburger menu! On a mobile screen? No way. Just. Wow!
I like to take the time with clients to nail down certain steps in the design process. Minem and I are going through a review here.
Project with Minem Sezgin. Development by Rik Frieling.
Eneco — 2018
The Eneco app enables consumers to influence their energy bill by offering data on their power usage.
During my time we utilised click data, interviews and surveys to simplify the interface and user flows. We improved the menu through a card sort.
By following the Jobs to be Done model, we focused most of the redesigned interactions around the goals users have.
We also realised a bigger shake-up of the app through a design sprint.
Project with Dept & Eneco.
HR Projectadvies — 2018
As an interim project manager Erik Jan helps large corporates go through organizational changes. The renewed site expresses who he is: an expert with an approach that connects people.
We rewrote and restructured Erik Jan's previous website using a priority guide. We also used the guide to build wireframes. Not that that's related to this guy.
When in doubt, add more illustrations. In this case, we created some abstract ones related to typical HR practices and skills.
I couldn't find a photo of Nick and me working on this project, so here's a photo of Nick in Voorlinden.
Project with Erik Jan van Dalen. Design & development with Nick Lutgerhorst.
Info
I'm Martijn, a digital designer from Utrecht (NL) with 10+ years of professional experience.
While I focus on tinkering with interfaces and designing for curiosity, I appreciate being involved in branding as well.
I like to think about friction in interaction design.
Technology is an instrument meant to help us, which means it shouldn’t intrude when we don’t need it. By thoughtfully adding small amounts of friction to well-considered places, I believe that we can strike the right balance between maximising usability and maintaining an appropriate distance.
Another way I’d like to look at design is that it is a way of making the technology we use feel considerate, warm and natural. While this isn’t technology’s default state, I believe that we should use design to give us back some of that warmth.
This means we should be focused on anticipating and solving a user’s problems before they ever have them. Ideally, a tool should be so intuitive and caring that we forget that it’s technology at all. It should just be there when it’s needed, and absent when it’s not.
Currently
Digital product designer at Parta – a method & platform for decision-making processes
Freelance designer – helping out friends, design studios and organisations
Guest lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences – Communication and Media Design
Previously
Lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences – Communication and Media Design's specialisation 'Human Centered Design'
Digital designer at iO
UX designer at Hike One
UX designer through secondment at SchaalX
Designer at Studio Airport
Collaboration is essential to create relevant work. In my freelance practice, I experiment with different approaches of collaboration, be it with clients, specialists in related fields and designers new to the game.
I’ve developed a strong interest in socially driven projects by being involved in ones such as restaurant Syr and Parta. It's also why I started lecturing at Communication & Multimedia Design in Utrecht. Are you working on a socially driven project? I’m always open to learn more. ☻
Some clients I worked for
University of the Arts Utrecht
Dutch Ministry of Culture, Education and Science
Into the Great Wide Open
Amsterdam Art Council
Sportbedrijf Rotterdam
Emergence Magazine
White Ribbon UK
Restaurant Syr
Zware Jongens
Greenpeace
Kapitaal
Pfizer
eBay
Main skills
Interaction design
Digital branding
Visual design
Also fine at
Concept development
Project management
Design education
Usability testing
Design Thinking
Design systems
Workshopping
User research
Iconography
Prototyping
UX writing
Kanban
Scrum
Agile
GTD
I play around in
Final Cut Pro X
Affinity’s suite
Adobe’s suite
Keynote
Sketch
Things
Notion
Figma
Miro
Jira
Office (with a face like this: 😤)
Mentions
It's Nice That – Tom Heerschop
Commarts – Tom Heerschop
Volkskrant – Syr
DUIC – Syr
NU – Syr
European Design Award – Amsterdamse Kunstraad
Honorable Mention – Amsterdamse Kunstraad
Honorable Mention – Tom Heerschop
Honorable Mention – Go Short
Honorable Mention – Inspire
DesignRush – Ruff
For inquiries
If you’re into PDFs
Development by
Eurico Sá Fernandes and Jori Regter
Shout out to
Nikita Kuijpers. She shot the photo of me giving a talk.
- A designer
- doing sites,
- apps & such