From passion
to a full-time job

Last updated: 04-09-23

My name is Robert Ligthart, a Freelance Product Designer who is (currently) based in The Netherlands. I am 23 years old, but have at least 5 years of experience and became a full-time freelancer in 2019.

I hold a passion for minimalistic designs and believe that great designs are often invisible. With an impactful design, you can convey your story or the story of your business to a wider audience. I want to help you build an online brand and or strengthening your online brand.

I’m a person with an entrepreneurial mindset. Due to my entrepreneurial mindset, I’m really flexible when it comes to achieving certain objectives. Think about designing top-notch web(apps) and website, but also when the website needs to be profitable focused which sometimes means that design is less important. When I start with a certain task, I do want to know what you’re exactly in need of. In the past, I often hear that clients do appreciate that.

Besides my freelance career, I have done some side projects too that I sold or still working on in the background. Some of them were profitable, and some of them led in learning a new skill. Last year, I have sold one of my affiliate marketing websites. The time I’m writing this, I am spending a lot of time in Javascript frameworks like React & Typescript to step up my front-end and back-end skills.

Reason why I spend time in learning side skills is because of the fact that it makes me a more valuable freelance product designer. I am a big believer in focus on a specific area and getting really good at it, but because of the fact that designing a product is basically going to determine how your future product you will look like and work, it is extremely important to know how it also works from a technical perspective.

Also, I started spending more time in code because, on some of the projects that I got hired, my design didn't meet my expectations which affected (in my opinion) the result of the end product.

How I got started

I’ve been involved in working on digital designs since the age of 11. Later in the year of 2011, I was fortunate enough to design my first digital design for a Dutch Youtuber. My work was used as both a profile icon and the profile banner. Since this moment, I improved my skills, continuing to provide digital design for others in many fields including graphic design, motion design, front-end development, and some marketing skills.

Work policy

I spend most of my time working in Almere or Amsterdam. Working remotely is that I love, because it saves (a lot of) commuting time. However, this does not mean I am unwilling to work in other locations, but I won’t be able to work at specific locations on a regular basis.