Welcome to my Academic Portfolio

My identity forms the basis from which I work towards my vision, and shows what kind of designer/speaking subject I currently am. As I am working from posthumanist design values, I will not talk about who I am as designer, but rather who I am as speaking subject acting within a designer and what my practice looks like.

I am ambitious and passionate. I push hard, work harder and want to make everything better than it was before. This has brought me amazing projects and kudos from my peers, but can also work against my practice, since the speaking subject should be humble. Every day I am becoming more aware of how my enthusiasm blinds me, which I try to counter through local and situated practice.

I am social. My practice is driven by world problems, like social injustice or climate change. I always work on these problems when designing, whether that is by directly working one these issues, or by acknowledging them in seemingly unrelated projects. Being social also means my projects are made from a social basis: from beginning to ending I involve all stakeholders in the project’s development. I love working in a team and thrive when being surrounded by different disciplines. One of my favourite parts about doing design is working with people on my design, to see both how it helps them and how I can improve it. 

I am posthumanist. Following posthumanist design methods, my social practice extends to nonhumans. Humans and nonhumans are equally important within my design practice, as I believe this is needed to create truly sustainable designs. Within my practice I also aim to make everything as local and situated as possible, for example by working in the region, and including real (non)humans in the process, as opposed to working for instance with ‘personas’.

I am creative. By adapting different theories to fit my projects better, I creatively look for ways to get the best results. I work from the process: by constantly reflecting and looking at what is around me, I am able to follow where the project is taking me and get the most out of every player involved. This ensures the project reveals itself in the best possible way, which is usually not the way which is expected at the beginning. Aesthetics also play a major part on my practice: I am a believer in how design ‘goes though the stomach’. If (non)humans do not like the aesthetics, they will not properly use it, and they will never properly like it. Through my expertise in tailoring, I bring this to my practice: by thoroughly learning how one craft works, I am able to recognise it in other professions, as well as being able to make museum-quality products.

I am a realist. If I were to make something which would end world hunger tomorrow, but no-one wants to use it, I do not believe it is a good product. Through extensive business research I test whether my ideas have any chance of succeeding in our current social and economic climate, and therefore whether the idea is worth pursuing or needs another iteration.

I am a critic. Why design escalators when you can have stairs? Although themes such as Slow Data, with projects like Olly (Odom et al., 2019) show me how technology has the power to make an inaccessible world accessible, I believe ‘innovation’ and ‘technology’ are over-used and over-appreciated. This is mostly because of the costs of the resources and maintenance, where an analog solution could be equally good or better. I prefer to look at what previous generations did, and see how this can be done with our current knowledge and options. That being said, applying technology in a project is not my strong suit. I hope to extend this through soft robotics, which I believe can be produced sustainably and bring more technology to my practice.

I am Minne, speaking subject. Through the combination of everything above, I am shaped as speaking subject, which combined with my vision, forms my practice. My portfolio shows I am a diverse designer, witch qualities ranging from social design to business design, from tailoring to AI an data science, working on UI design briefs like Bilihome’s to conceptual and philosophical briefs in Matter of Transformation. Combining this with my knowledge as tailor, I am mostly active within projects surrounding fashion(-tech) and sustainability. Currently I am applying this by continuing my FMP project professionally, for which I got serious interest from two organisations. I am also still working as user-specialist within Bilihome, where I will continue to work on innovative solutions to provide remote care. Combining the income and experience from Bilihome, and the work I will continue to do on my FMP project, I hope to find out and give shape to what it means to be a posthumanist designer.