Simplicity hides the mess.
Yvonne Bruin
Setting the scene
We met at T-Stories in Strijp-S. One of those tiny, overflowing spots during Dutch Design Week where the crowd spills into the street. It was chilly, windy, and everything around us buzzed with people drifting between design hot spots.
Through the window I spotted Yvonne: bright-eyed and instantly animated. The kind of person who jumps into conversation before you even sit down. We shared a small table with strangers because there was no room anywhere else. It fit the moment perfectly — slightly chaotic, full of energy, ideas bumping into ideas.
Our chat was anything but linear, but everything connected around one idea: Things that look simple often hide an entire universe of complexity.
What she does
Yvonne is an innovation designer at Horizonteer. They help companies rethink products, services, and business models. She leans in when sustainability, regulation, and reality don’t naturally play well together.
She’s a designer who works through people. No imaginary personas, but real nurses, technicians, material experts, and everyone who actually touches the system.
She doesn’t just create solutions. She redesigns the context that makes those solutions possible.
What we talked about
About the hidden complexity behind “simple” products
She dropped the phrase “Hoe moeilijk kan het zijn?” We both laughed because the answer is always: much harder than you think.
Circular design sounds simple on paper: “just recycle it.” But she explained what really happens:
- Waste streams are inconsistent
- Recycled materials misbehave
- Regulations clash
- “Green” solutions often introduce new problems
Her example of turning hospital packaging waste back into hospital products made this painfully clear. A closed-loop dream on paper; a regulatory maze in reality.
Circularity isn’t clean. It’s sorting chaos with intention.
Design between art & engineering
Because it was Dutch Design Week, this contrast was everywhere. One installation felt like pure artistic expression. Ten meters later, you’d see something that could ship at IKEA tomorrow.
Between those extremes sits the designer’s job: turning ideas into things that survive reality.
Yvonne works exactly on that tightrope. Seeing constraints not as blockers but as creative material.
The invisible mess designers quietly fix
We talked about how users call something “simple” only because somebody else already did the complicated work.
Designers:
- Untangle contradictory requirements
- Balance risks and trade-offs
- Mediate between disciplines
- Fix broken systems without applause
A well-designed product works so smoothly that its complexity disappears. It’s like picking up a leaf. Simple at first glance, but zoom in and it’s full of structure.
Yvonne lives in that zoomed-in world every day.
Her spark and how she involves others
One thing that impressed me: she doesn’t design from her desk.
She goes to hospitals. She talks to nurses. She collaborates with compliance experts. She sits with people who experience the problems firsthand.
In her world, co-creation isn’t a method — it’s the default.
Right after our meeting she rushed off to record a video for Horizonteer at DDW. Same energy, same spark. Switching from reflection to action without losing curiosity.
Reflections
Simplicity is rarely simple
Talking to Yvonne reinforced the designer’s secret: when something feels effortless, someone worked very hard to make that happen. Great design makes complexity invisible.
Circularity is a systems problem
Her stories reminded me that sustainability isn’t a vibe or a checkbox. It’s a network of materials, rules, behaviors, and unintended consequences. It’s not glamorous. It’s slow, stubborn, and necessary.
Creativity lives between disciplines
DDW showed us the full spectrum — from conceptual art to retail-ready products. Real design lives exactly between those poles.
- Emotion ━━ Logic
- Vision ━━ Feasibility
- Provocation ━━ Production
That tension is where interesting things happen.
Quietly fixing the world
Her perspective made me rethink my own work. Whether it’s a baby bottle or a payment terminal, a good design hides its own difficulty. Users shouldn’t see the effort. They should feel the clarity.
Curiosity as method, not personality
What stood out most is how she uses curiosity as a tool to involve people earlier, to ask better questions, to uncover realities no research deck can capture. It made me reflect on where I could bring more voices into my own process. Not to slow things down, but to make them more true.