I would describe myself as being a designer that encompasses many design related skills, but that has a speciality in designing physical spaces, objects and experiences. My way of thinking and working is to problem-solve, ask questions, and in general to try to provoke curiosity. Working in the physical spectrum of design means that I am naturally drawn to the interaction and involvement of design-and-human.
Kismet is a no-rules game designed to ignite your intuition through curiosity and interaction. It uses a combination of 3D printing, magnets, and metal surfaces which allows you to engage with forms, forces, and of course fun!
The shapes are designed so that they look as if they can fit together, but because of the magnets, they do not always. This is a metaphor for life. You can plan and plan and plan, but things do not always work out the way you want them to.
The game is small in size and is perfect for those long and lonely train trips. It is a product made up of a box, a lid, and 45 playing pieces. It is intended for players of 18 years old and up, as from this age many questions of life — present, past and future — start to arise. Therefore, some of these questions have been represented on the back of the lid. When playing with the pieces on this surface, one notices the questions, but because of the playing pieces the player becomes distracted and somehow forgets that they are there, and this psychologically provides a mental relief through the exploration of form.
As a limited edition, Kismet has been upscaled and given a larger playing surface. The visitors can fully emerge within this version with the shapes and a 3-dimensional metal grid structure. In addition to the playing pieces, metal sheets can also be placed or removed within the grid to allow variations and additional axes when playing. Kismet becomes interactive in multiple ways and opens play to more players with its increased size.
Kismet hopes to inspire you to become more present within the moment, let things happen as they may want, and take a small break from your daily worries.
Thesis: Do we know where we are going? Don't worry, neither do I.
Do we know where we are going? Don’t worry, neither do I, is a partly subjective look into what it means to be a designer graduating from an art academy within The Netherlands. It is also somewhat a manner to go into my own personal frustrations, questions, realisations and comparisons related to design education, as well as to possibly gain an understanding into what it is I am actually doing with my life and what it is I have studied.
These writings have managed to play inspiration for the creation of my graduation project: Kismet. A no-rules game which uses a metaphor for life as its core concept: You can plan and plan and plan, but things do not always work out the way you want them to. As this metaphor states, the same can be said for my thesis — it did not go as I had planned it…