My name is Martin Hattingh, I designed and built* this website.
I'm a Presentation Layer Architect User Experience Analyst who's in love both with what I do, and with the potential of the human mind. During the day I move between juggling all sorts of business-related stuff over at bSOLVe, drawing icons and buttons, and drinking green tea. At night I sleep, and on the weekends I ride my mountain bike up (and very quickly down) anything remotely hilly. I'm a sucker for punishment :-p
I used to have a long description of my way of thinking (mindset, I guess) up on this page. Because I do things unconventionally, I felt that I had to explain myself. It was kinda cool, but it was long-winded, and only crazy supermodel-stalkers ever read the whole thing. So I'm told, at least...
That being said, there were a few important things I did want to keep, including my home-spun definition of design, which also says a lot about me:
Design is creating something out of nothing, or something more(or less) out of something. Creation is fundamental to design, even though some design removes from something existing in order to improve it. Design is thinking about the way something works, and not just thinking - but carefully considering every little detail about how every little part fits together to form the whole. Through this consideration, design is about arranging things in a way which improves the subject/object/matter being considered. More practically, design is applicable on multiple levels. It's about making things work well. It's about making things look good. On a deeper level, it's about making people feel good about things; a crucial, if sometimes overlooked factor.
Suffice it to say that I design stuff, messages (and ways to bring them across) mostly. I won't bore you with paragraphs of philosophical rambling (my blog has enough of that in general!), but will leave you with these points, in summary:
- I do not design communications for businesses or individuals I do not believe in.
- I do not build something if I do not agree with it in principle.
- Mutual respect and trust is non-negotiable. Always.
- I believe in the power of attention to detail, in the emotional value the human mind attaches to creations which are carefully considered and meticulously brought to life.
- I love ideas that transcend conventional thinking, and how they speak to the human spirit.
- I do not always know.
- I will always figure it out.
- I do not believe that it's incorrect to use and after a comma. Do it yourself, and tell people you did, just because you can.
Unfortunately (because sometimes people do ask) I'm not really available for "freelance" work (experience design or otherwise). bSOLVe is my life's work, and I pretty much devote all my professional time to it; that being said, I'm open to considering projects in business capacity (or, if you prefer to put it that way, the bSOLVe team - which includes me, naturally - would be happy to look at your requirements).
Oh, if you're interested in that kind of stuff, I hold an M.Comm in Business Strategy from the University of Stellenbosch, and was until recently busy preparing for a PhD in knowledge management/innovation strategy. Because I love what I'm doing so much, I'm going to have to finish it at a later stage
* Thanks to Omar and Scott for dasBlog, the engine which powers these pages in the background. Respect.