Jonas Verheijden (1983) is the creative director and co-founder of Superlab, a digital design studio based near Hasselt. After graduating from art school in 2006, Jonas started working as an interactive designer at The Parking Lot. Later on he became an art director at Nascom, a digital agency in Genk. In 2011, he became a design director at Boondoggle, a renowned agency in Leuven. In that capacity, he managed a team of 7 multidisciplinary designers while keeping his design skills sharp on projects for Belfius, the Belgian Red Devils, Proximus and NATO. His passion for both branding and interactive design translated into a portfolio filled with award-winning creative campaigns, visual interfaces and brand designs.

I studied classic graphic design. During the early 2000’s, motion design and interface design in Flash started booming. I was immediately triggered by the dynamic nature of digital design. So instead of creating static, offline graphics, I could create graphics for the screen.

Superlab is a design studio that shapes and designs digital ideas and brings wonderful experiences to life. We’re a new kind of design agency that combines strategic, creative and technological skills into a holistic process. We don’t just design stuff, we help organizations create business value through design. At Superlab I’m in charge of all things creative. From visual identities to interface designs, Jonas covers it all.

That’s a hard question to answer. I like all styles of digital design as long as they combine a fresh and unique graphic style with a user-friendly interface.

When the design doesn’t stand in the way of a great user experience.

I would like to describe my style as creative minimalistic. I see every interface as an extension of the brand and every visual identity as part of the user experience. I like to use a lot of white space, ‘off-grid’ shapes, big typography and splashes of colour.

We have a very solid process for interface design. Without giving too much of our secret recipe away: we like to divide our interface design projects into smaller, co-creative sprints. We involve all stakeholders from a client and all members of our own team as soon as possible.

I’ve always drawn inspiration from platforms such as Dribbble and Behance. But I’m also addicted to a bunch of design related podcasts and love to read up on (business) design.

The internet is becoming less boring again (finally). Technology is finally catching up to the dynamic, off-grid and fresh interfaces that were created in Flash years ago.

It’s a great accomplishment for a young and small company from Belgium. So we’re very proud and hope to win plenty more in the near future.

Going to a Brussels Philharmonic concert is a refreshing experience. But their website didn’t project that image at all. We were brought in to translate the fresh and premium identity that Brussels Philharmonic has offline to an online environment and improve the overall visual experience to make the orchestra more appealing to a younger public.

Finding a way to translate the amazing offline experience of a philharmonic concert to an equally impressive online experience.

To be honest, not much has changed since winning the award (which was fairly recent). But we did see a huge confidence-boost in our team!

- Always moving and changing

- It’s a relatively new industry, which makes me excited for the future.

- No matter how small your company, you’re able to work internationally.

We’re small but we’re packed with talent. Belgium is the centre of Europe and we can be in Germany, France, The Netherlands or the United Kingdom in less than 2 hours.

Hard to tell. I would put my money on the importance of designing for voice and other senses like smell.

Don’t be afraid to try out new tools and technologies. Sticking to what you know (or learned in school) will hinder your creativity.

I actually wanted to draw comics when I entered art school. I found out real quick that I sucked.

My wife and son inspire me everyday to do my best. And on a purely professional level, I’ve always looked up to Tobias Van Schneider (a visual designer based in NY).

Don’t get angry at clients. I see a lot of designers that get frustrated with feedback. But their input is always valuable, even if it doesn’t make any sense.