DUTCH DESIGN WEEK
Our project aimed to translate Dutch Design Week’s 2023 theme, “Picture This,” into a digital pre-exhibition experience that captures its speculative energy. I led interaction design and project direction, bridging visual experimentation with functional structure to create a microsite that feels exploratory, cohesive, and alive.
The Problem
Visitors often discovered exhibitions only after arriving at Dutch Design Week. There was little opportunity to explore themes or connect with the designers beforehand.
Studying designers & principles
As a team, we studied designer Chris Ashworth for his structured chaos and Ellen Lupton for her syntactic and semantic designs. This informed our final art direction that tested line, type, and asymmetry to communicate relationships.
Graphic experimentation
We explored dozens of combinations of precedent principles and qualities to create posters that would drive our final art direction.
Defining visual and content strategy
I came up with a visual design strategy that challenges the conventional in order to encourage engagement and exploration of the site using provocative images and moving grid lines.
Strategy #1
Use provocative images to spur intrigue and instigate further questioning of content.
Strategy #2
Leverage unconventional navigation to encourage engagement and exploration of the site.
Strategy #3
Use symmetrical moving grid lines to draw attention and reinforce a more dynamic experience.
My design rationale
Our goal was to create excitement and more informed decisions as to which exhibits to go to.
I wanted to capture the experimentalist style of speculative design by going beyond the traditional precedents while still using grid systems to ground the whole microsite.
Lateral interpretations
Our team began exploring how different levels of expression could shape user perception and interaction. We developed three design directions that moved along a spectrum, from functional to fully expressive; each reinterpreting the microsite’s purpose.
The Handoff
As the lead interaction designer, I had to make sure my interaction flows and wireframes could be easily understood and interpretable by my team’s prototyper.
I designed 15 unique interactions for the three directions in all of their home pages, exhibition pages, and ticket pages.
My Workspace
After 7 weeks, my handoff included:
3 user flows and 15 interactions where
6 of them went into the final design.
A fully prototyped microsite designed
and mapped on Figma.
What I learned
Stepping up as a project manager.
One of the hardest weeks in the project came when our momentum collapsed. I had not upheld my responsibilities as a project manager. Things in my personal life pulled my focus away, direction scattered, and motivation dropped. That moment made me realize leadership is not just assigning tasks or organizing meetings; it is holding space for the team and making sure everyone stays aligned, encouraged, and supported when things stall.
After that week I made it a priority to rebuild structure and energy. We rebuilt our workflow, redefined our goals, and within a short time the team climbed to the top of the class and stayed there for the rest of the project. It reminded me that strong leadership is about resilience and course correction when things go wrong, not perfection.
Design needs a foundation.
Content first, visuals second.
Through this project I learned strong design depends on a strong content strategy. It is easy to chase visual polish or aesthetic experimentation, but without meaning or justification rooted in the client’s goals, the work falls flat.
Every decision, from typography to motion, needed to connect back to why it mattered and who it was for. That shifted my process from designing for visuals to designing for clarity and intent. In UX, beauty without purpose is decoration, not impact. Grounding ideas in strategy turns design from something that looks good into something that works.