Design the environment. Not just the output.

Pim Smit

Setting the scene

I visited Pim’s studio in Sint-Oedenrode and stepped into a maker’s playground: 3D printers, a CNC mill, woodworking benches, and shelves stacked with finished and half-finished prototypes. Sun light fell through a high window, catching small dust particles drifting in and out of the beam. In the corner, a 3D printer hummed steadily, adding its own quiet rhythm to the room. The energy is immediate: curiosity, experimentation, no sterile design talk.

He shares the space with other creatives such as woodworkers, ceramicists, stonemasons, and even someone building a giant aluminium boat. It’s half workshop, half playground.

His office sits inside what will become a future bed-and-breakfast. Another side project built together with the same group of makers. Before we even sat down, I felt that familiar sense of stepping into someone’s world, not someone’s office. What a start.

What he does

Pim is part designer, part founder, part community builder. He moves fluidly between making things, bringing people together, and shaping opportunities around him.

That mindset didn’t appear out of nowhere. Before starting his own studio, Pim worked at Ahrend, where he learned the discipline and scale of creating products that must perform day after day in demanding environments. He also spent time in China absorbing how manufacturing actually runs at speed and scale. How ideas turn into objects and how factories think.

These experiences shaped the designer-founder he is now. Someone who understands the craft, the people, and the business around making. Someone who builds both products and the community around them.

Pim doesn’t just design objects.

He designs moments.

He designs connections.

He designs the space for others to create.

What we talked about

Back together with old colleagues

Three years later, he’s back sharing a space with some of those same people from the furniture days. You can sense how much he values that small-scale community. It isn’t about splitting rent, but for sharing ideas, tools, tips, and momentum. He’s built a creative space in real life; you can feel the fun in it.

Projects: food molds and flat-pack lamps

He showed me his food-mold experiments: 3D-printed PLA forms cast in silicone to make food-safe molds. One example looked like a bar of soap; paired with edible foam, it becomes an oddly surreal dining experience.

Then there’s his flat-pack lamp collection, made from laser-cut pieces that ship flat and come alive when assembled. To make sure people can build them frustration-free, he sends out kits in advance for real user tests. That kind of attention to detail even on experimental pieces says a lot about how he thinks.

Collaboration with design labels and how to make it work financially

Among others, Pim collaborates with design brand Zuiver, creating furniture and lighting. His payment model stood out. Typically, designers earn ~3–6% royalties on sales. This means cash flow can be slow until a product launches. Pim found a smarter hybrid: he charges development costs upfront; when the product launch he doesn’t get royalties until his development cost are recovered; then royalties begin. It’s a designer’s version of more sustainable cash flow. Enough runway to keep experimenting without waiting years for returns.

Mass production vs. small-scale agility

We talked about the contrast between global scale and small-batch making. Both worlds manage risk in their own way.

We’ve both worked in or with China and love the high-speed sprints. Things that take weeks here happen overnight there. That intensity is exhilarating, but we agreed the healthiest rhythm is hybrid: short bursts of execution followed by slower periods of reflection back home.

It reminded me of Slow Productivity by Cal Newport: exceptional work comes from alternating between deep, focused effort and deliberate rest. You can’t run at peak output all the time. Even Newton worked in cycles of intensity and recovery. You see similar patterns in modern figures like Bill Gates.

Business reality

Eventually, we got real about business. Great design means nothing if no one sees or buys it. Pim joked that designers are experts at hiding behind “perfecting.” Sometimes you just have to ship. Let it break. Learn from it. The market is the final prototype. We both agreed that progress often feels uncomfortable and that’s a good sign. If everything feels polished, you’re probably moving too slow.

Reflections

Honest mess behind the clean photos

What struck me most was how open Pim was about the messy parts. Behind the beautiful website, videos, photography sits trial, error, and stubborn persistence. Every polished product hides chaos and that’s completely okay.

Independence as a mindset

I admired how he built independence step by step. No investors, no chase for hyper-growth. He is just creating on his own terms. Independence doesn’t require quitting a job; it starts with small, consistent experiments.

Balance between output and recharge

His rhythm of intense bursts of work followed by long pauses to think, hit home. I’ve been running fast lately, but maybe creativity isn’t constant motion; it’s knowing when to breathe.

The sales-channel insight

“Finding the right place to sell” stuck with me. A product isn’t real until someone uses it. The loop only closes when people interact with what we make. That’s where learning begins.

Designers as doers, not perfectionists

The conversation made me more aware of my tendency to over-refine. Validation doesn’t happen in SolidWorks or PowerPoint. It happens in the real world, with users and buyers.

Motivation to ship my own work

I walked away buzzing and motivated to finish my website and share more of what I do. That conversation flipped something: curiosity only matters if it leaves the notebook and makes it into the world.