Web design · Bolsward
I design your website
For me a design does not start with colours, but with the question who the site has to work for and what that person comes to do. I design websites for businesses in Bolsward, Sneek, Workum, Makkum and the villages around them, in the identity you have or in a new one.
- Leeuwarden, NL
How I design
From the first question to a design that works.
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The question first
Who visits your site, and what do they want to know or do? I ask you, and where possible a few of your customers.
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A look at what is there
I put the sites of similar businesses side by side: what works there, what is missing, and where you can be different.
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Designing in the browser
No pictures that still have to be rebuilt afterwards. You get a working prototype straight away, on your own phone, and we build on from there.
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Testing with real people
Someone who does not know the site gets a task and I watch where it falters. What does not go by itself, I change.
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A small design system
Colours, type and components are laid down on one page, so the site is still right after a year of updates.
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Calm over decoration
Few colours, few typefaces and no effect that says nothing.
What I like
I like things that make something complicated feel simple. Braun, Apple, Elektron and Teenage Engineering show that clarity, character and solid engineering can go together. That is what I measure my own work against: obvious on the surface, carefully structured underneath.
Studying Communication & Multimedia Design taught me to first ask why something should exist and who it is for. For my graduation project UntitledOne I did three in-depth interviews, a survey and a comparison of eight platforms before I built anything, and tested it afterwards with the people it is for. For a shop or a practice that is smaller, but the order is the same.
Because I design in the browser, we skip a step. There is no design that later turns out different from the picture, and no second round to rebuild it: the prototype you respond to becomes the site.
For Intence Mode, my parents’ clothing store in Bolsward, that became a design in beige and brown, with one typeface, flat and without shadows. The opening hours sit right below the first screen.
How it is built after that and how you keep it up to date yourself is under website development in Bolsward.
How I work
Clear decisions, short loops and something real to react to.
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Find the actual need
Before choosing a stack, I clarify the goal, the user and the smallest version worth building.
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Build the right amount
I choose the simplest stack that fits, then move quickly into something real enough to test and improve.
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Refine the experience
Responsive behaviour, subtle motion, accessible choices, readable code and a clear CMS turn a working build into a finished product.
Questions
What people usually want to know first.
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No. If you have a logo and an identity, I work with those. If you do not, or you want to renew them, I make them.
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Because it saves a step. A picture does not show how a site behaves on a phone, with a long text or when you click something. A prototype in the browser does, and it is the base of the site straight away.
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Yes. You then get it as code, not as a picture: a solid base for someone else to build on. I prefer to do design and build together, so they fit.
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Yes, gladly. I know Bolsward and the area well and prefer to meet at your place once. After that most of it goes just as well remotely.
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That depends on what it has to be. Email what you have in mind, and I will tell you roughly what it costs and whether I have time for it.
Which stack when
I choose the simplest one that fits.
| Stack | When |
|---|---|
| WordPress | Content someone manages themselves: a site, a portfolio, a blog. |
| Expo | Something you carry with you and that has to remind you: an app. |
| Next.js | A product with accounts, logic of its own or a lot of interaction. |
| Laravel | An application with users, permissions and a lot of data. |