Identity

My name is Simon à Campo, 20 years old and I come from Meerssen.  I currently have my own business in juggling, graphic design and web development and I also work as an interaction designer for Bset Media an advertising/website development company in Eindhoven.

The 4 big things that identify me are from small to big: music, juggling, technical skills and designing. Music and juggling give me inspiration and relaxation but juggling also helps me to get more confident in my skills, because I can really push myself to my boundaries. From time to time I like to get really technical by for example programming or developing websites but the biggest thing is combining my creativity with all these factors into designing.  

When tackling a new task, I first start to do research and find inspiration. I easily get inspired and this creates a good work attitude towards all the things I do. In order to keep track of all the things that I have to do and make sure I don’t forget a task, I create to do’s lists very often. This can be on my computer or even small notes that are everywhere.  

My drive as a designer is appreciation from other people for the work I do. It makes me happy to help people with solving their problems or fulfilling their needs. Creating products is a way for me to gain this appreciation, resulting in a big eager to learn, work attitude and drive to do a little extra every time.

Vision

Last semester I got a PC because the assessor thought I didn’t really had a vision. This got me motivated to search what my vision was. An eye-opener was the Ted-talk from Simon Sinek and really got me thinking why I did what I do. This started with small questions on my different hobbies and professions: “why do I like performing with juggling?”, “why do I like making websites for people?”. I found answers and searched for similarities in these answers and tried to answer bigger and more abstract questions: “why do I like helping people and why should I?”, “what can I contribute to the society as a designer?”. Finding answers to most of the questions, looking for visions of famous designers and defining my opinion for products came across, resulted in the following vision:

Good design = Accessible & Usable

On the left you see a new 3D-printer that still has to be released on the market. It is cheap, very user friendly and gives access to the new technology 3D-printing for more people by making it so easy to use. The minimalistic and simple design makes the product look easy to use.

This product matches my vision the most, because I want to create products that are accessible & usable which has multiple interpretations:

Accessible: 

• Overprized products are only accessible to the few rich people in the world; I want to create products with a fair price/quality ratio.
• People shouldn’t be hold back to follow their dreams and needs because the service or products just isn’t there; I want to give people the access to fulfil their needs and dreams by creating products.

Usable: 

• Shops are filled with products that you pick up and think “ah  nice” and you just put it back because you don’t need it, I want to create products that really will get used  and are needed, more than a “nice product”.
• Products should be as easy to use in order for a first time user to know instinctively how to use it, but it also should have enough functionality if the user gets more experienced using the product.

Seeing the rapid pace of new technology development, I see my role as product designer for society in helping to shape these new technologies in order for society to get access into these new usable products.