Year 1 | Past
In my first year, I entered Industrial Design with a technical mindset shaped by having just switched majors from mechanical engineering. I leaned heavily on tools like CAD, data analysis, and structured processes. My work was grounded in clarity, efficiency, and explanation. This is where I developed and was tied to Math, Data & Computing (M&C) and Technology & Realization (T&R); I worked with defined outputs, optimizing systems, and making things “work.” I saw users as endpoints, not participants in the co-creation process. As such, my focus in User & Society (U&S) was narrow and transactional, often centered on usability and functionality rather than presence or experience.
At the same time, I began exploring Creativity & Aesthetics (C&A) in ways that felt conflicted. I knew how to apply visual polish, but it was for minimalist decoration. Design felt like a system, not a story. While I engaged in group projects, my grasp of Business & Entrepreneurship (B&E) was limited to basic planning and scheduling, only out of necessity. I did what was needed, but I didn’t yet see how those skills could support a larger, more abstract vision of what design was meant to be.
Still, as the year went along, a sense of discomfort started to develop. The things I made were working, but they didn’t resonate, they clearly were made for a grade. That distress became the beginning of a shift; the moment where I started to wonder if design could feel, not just function.
Year 2 | Present
Entering my second year, I started to think like a designer. I let go of the engineering mindset's need to solve and began to embrace the ambiguity of presence, emotion, and quiet interaction. My exploration in User & Society (U&S) deepened, not through personas or interviews, but through ritual, reflection, and slow design. I began designing not for usability, but for subtle effect. In E-GRIEF, I invited people to process grief through clay. In SKYWAY, I helped design light to guide memory, not motion.
Creativity & Aesthetics (C&A) became central to how I communicated. I no longer treated aesthetics as styling. Every shape, surface, and material became a way to say something that words couldn’t. Technology & Realization (T&R) also evolved. I still structurally used technology; LEDs, electronics, and sensors, but now I used them to support presence rather than performing on their own. My realizations became quiet, embedded, atmospheric. The technology became the carrier, not the message.
Meanwhile, my relationship with Business & Entrepreneurship (B&E) became pragmatic. I managed the budget for SKYWAY, navigated constraints, and handled logistics. Rather than seeing it as the “uncreative” part, I started viewing B&E as the "necessary" that allows idealistic design to exist in the real world.
My weakest expertise area remained M&C, as while I had used it having switched from engineering, my lack of affinity in it is what caused me to switch in the first place. Nevertheless, I started exploring it in a more designerly fashion; I became interested in translating data into emotional atmosphere not for dashboards, but for ambience. I began exploring tools like TouchDesigner to turn input into feeling, not feedback.
Most importantly, I began to design from identity. I no longer saw projects as tasks and grades, but as reflections of my view of the world. My work became quieter, but it spoke more.
Year 3 | Future
In my third year, I want to become consistent. My foundation in T&R and C&A is strong, and I want to use that to further create designs that are emotionally resonant while technically grounded. I plan to use M&C to explore generative, real-time data and translate it into subtle signals using light, sound, or motion. My goal is not just to learn computation, but to humanize it to design interactions that feel rather than calculate.
I want to deepen my work in User & Society (U&S) by creating systems that do not demand participation but passively interact. I’m drawn to ambient interaction, to non-verbal design, and to creating spaces that reflect human emotion without needing to be explained.
However, this is all easier said than done. As such, entering summer break I have laid out a plan for my final year in the bachelor.
SMART Goals for Year 3:
By Q1, I will complete a structured TouchDesigner course and apply it in a small ambient prototype using real-time sensor data.
By Q2, I will build a working installation that combines responsive input and poetic feedback, tested in a real environment.
By Q3, I will join a multidisciplinary collaboration focused on ambiguity and ambient interaction.
By the end of the year, I will submit a conceptual project to an open call or external exhibition such as DDW to test its impact outside of TU/e. Furthermore, to wrap up the year I aim to stay with the sensory matters squad to conduct my FBP, in which I aim to explore how multimodal design can evoke not just the senses, but also thought.