Paul Reijnierse

Founder, Business Director

Paul, the blue Monster, is in many ways the public face of the Monsters. Although some Monsters think this is because of his almost flawless English, being raised by two English teachers and a having passion for American sports. Reality is that Paul knows most about the things that are going on in our cave.

You might have noticed that the blue Monster only has one eye. It wasn't always like that. When Paul was a toddler Monster he used both Monster eyes all the time. Having a keen sense of focus and knowing the importance of adapting and staying flexible he decided it would work a lot better only having one. This Monster evolution resulted in allowing all the other Monsters to wander off on their own creative workflow while we know that we can trust on Paul to keep everything flowing into the right direction. Adding the fact that Paul has a background as a developer and interaction designer he is the perfect partner when it comes to managing project expectations.

Erik van de Wiel

Founder, Creative Director

When the Vikings started to use the name Erik, they must've had this orange Monster in mind. Because Erik means "Lone Ruler". Sitting on his high throne, shouting his design commands down to the other Monsters, sometimes Erik sure does feel like he is the lone ruler of the Monsters. While all Monsters know better, there is some truth in it. In the end the Monsters are design driven, and since Erik is calling the shots when it comes to design, he does rule the Monsters in that respect.

Thankfully Erik doesn't need to unleash his Monstrous wrath very often. His passion for user experience goes deep and it is shared by the other Monsters, keeping them on the same path during all projects. Still, Erik pushes everyone on a day to day basis to create the best experience possible. He is a strong advocate of Goal Directed design and leads the Monster tribe when it comes to Interaction Design, Interface Design and Visual Design.

Joost Harts

Developer

Joost is the first human that joined the Monsters after Ferdi started his new green Monsters pack before we actually had the chance to put any vacancies up. He tried to seduce us by acting that he was intern material while he was actually trying to blow us away with his Flash, AIR, Android, Ruby and design skills. We agreed it would be best not to squeeze him into a small intern Monster suit and give him his own. Joost has English roots and because of that he is able to talk really funny. He also likes to cuddle furry animals at the animal shelter where he volunteers on the weekends and scare a few sharks when he is standing and roaring on his surfboard.

Stijn van der Laan

Developer

Stijn, the third human ever to receive a green Monster suit joined the Monsters after we got to know him while he was helping us empty a bottle of rum at our new office. Any human acting like a crazy sailor while loving Flash, iPhone, iPad and javascript is one of the good guys in a world of Monsters. Shortly after installing his Mac we noticed that he only listens to songs with a BPM way over 180. This started making sense after we learned that during the weekends Stijn is an underground hardcore DJ in Amsterdam. While the other Monsters usually utilize their super powers from Monday to Friday, the pictures of Stijn proves he definitely claim using them during the weekend as well.

Kristel van den Akker

Internship Designer

Kristel, our design intern with crazy Photoshop skills. As a true Apple fangirl she owns multiple MacBooks, iPods, an Apple tv, iPhone and iPad. This combined with a dummy and a bunch of design related books they form her workstation at De Monsters. You might have already seen one of her couple thousand inspiration related tweets on Twitter, or on one of the other countless social media platforms she is currently using. Some might call this an obsession, we like to see it as a true passion into web design. Make sure to check out her inspiration links site, which is a really nice collection of design related links.

Paul van Putten

Internship Interaction Designer

Paul, or Paul 2 as we often call him at De Monsters, is a grad student from one of the top Universities in the Netherlands: Technical University Delft. Paul, who works in the trenches of both Industrial Design and Interaction Design, is helping us create Monster Blackbox by studying how teams of industrial designers interact while they create products. He manages to combine listening to metal music while typing transcripts from one of his many user interviews and analyzing the observations from the workshops he organizes, a skill we're proud of.