Michel van der Wal

Design

Portfolio.

A selection of projects for companies I’ve worked with over the years.

accenture
rco
war-child
heineken
rabobank
achmea
sap
worldline
pon-cat
anwb
ey
leaseweb

Promise.

This is what you can expect when we collaborate.

01

Design for dreaming big

You have a strategy, a dot on the horizon, or anything else that makes you dream big. Now what? You might want to co-create. Take your team on a journey without a map or destination. But with the confidence that you’ll end up somewhere great. I’ll bring you my bag of human centered design principles and methods that help you take your dreams from inception to tangible artifacts that you and your team can use to create beautiful products and services.

02

Design for decision making

Maybe you’re not ready to launch your next awesome product or service into the world yet. Sometimes you might just need some rainmaking done or get some important people on board first. I can help you convince any decision making unit on any level in an organisation to sign off. I’ll provide you with the visual stimuli you need to give your business idea hands and feet, and package story and concept in a perfect pitch for you to impress your audience.

03

Design for deployment

What’s a fantastic concept without perfect execution right? Allow me to blend brand assets, customer insights, journeys, business requirements, concept and identity into an intricate UI and an optimal UX. I’ll wrap your business idea into the right technology, execute experiments and help you build iteratively towards an MVP. Together we’ll make sure that your digital product will both look and perform better than roughly 96,2% of your competition.

04

Design for new dimensions

Unlike traditional designers, I like to take design to new dimensions. Whether you need to simulate, educate, gamify, storify, experiment or explore, I can help translate ideas into immersive real time 3D virtual, augmented or mixed reality experiences that literally add that extra dimension. I’ll make you a virtual twin of your environment or model the 3D assets you need for an awesome experience across any industry. I’ll even build you a fully working prototype on an XR device of your choice.

05

Design direction and management

I love combining individual contribution with design leadership and creative direction. I’m happy to take your design team members by the hand and lead them ‘by example’ to create awesome experiences. Let me be your pm-po-data-tech-strategy-tag-teamer, your brand-bulldog, design-decision-maker, or external-stakeholder-aligner. Together we’ll make sure that all design deliciousness will consumed the way it has been cooked up.

Personal.

If you are looking for an ultra-experienced-open-minded-stubborn-but-easy-going-strategy-and-data-tag-teaming-five-legged-m-shaped-creative-design-technologist-with-love-for-business-sense, or if anything here piques your interest, then we probably should start talking. Hiring me might be in the interest of both of us 🙂

Don’t hesitate to contact me for an introduction.

Design for new dimensions

Accenture

When

2021

What

Unique virtual experiences designed and build with Unity, often on top of Microsoft Mesh technology.

Wow

250+ visitors in the virtual townhall, onboarded multiple enterprises, and created +10 XR demos.

For my first task at Accenture I managed to convince the Dutch leadership team to take the yearly ‘all people townhall’ event to virtual reality. I was responsible for leading the project, directing design, overseeing development and QA and setting up the program. A virtual dome-shaped space was placed on the ‘Gustav Mahler plein’ right in front of the physical Accenture head office in Amsterdam. Our Netherlands Managing Director did a presentation and Q&A, we had virtual guests from Italy, and around the space, realtime 3D presentations of Accenture projects we’re scattered around the room for visitors to discover. 250+ concurrent visitors overheated the local Wi-Fi network and made it a success.

Besides learning the craft of XR engineering, during my time at Accenture, I was also an XR evangelist. Both internally and at clients, I hosted inspiration sessions, workshops, festivals, townhalls, QBRs and other activities to promote and demonstrate the value and benefits of XR.

For conventions and events, I created custom demo’s to inspire participants by using immersive technologies. The demo below was used at a security event held in 2022/2023 and shows how AR technology and real-world anchoring can help to visualize possible alarm signals over long distances by using mobile phones.

More new dimensions

Design for new dimensions

Royal Concerthall Orchestra

When

2024-2025

What

3D modelling for a Roblox based game in close collaboration with the wider global Accenture Song team.

Wow

Truly connecting the young target audience with values and principles of classical music in a fun way. 

For Accenture Song I was involved in the development of a Roblox game for the dutch Royal Concerthall Orchestra. As part of the 3D art team, I was involved with the creating of the 3D worlds for the game, including environmental assets, characters and animations.

The musical themed game is all about fulfilling musical quests in a variety of worlds. I was involved as a 3D artist in the first two worlds: Musical Village and Volcano World. Using Blender software we created musical themed assets, incorporating musical instruments into environmental assets.

More from Accenture

Design for decision making

Rabobank Agri Services

When

2016-2017

What

A strategy, value proposition design and research project with prototyping a proof-of-concept

Wow

Articulated the research and made way for strategy. Released funding for large IT investments.

While working at VODW, I was the researcher, designer and project lead for a research project with the objective to investigate the feasibility and viability of a micro-finance project for the global Rabobank organisation for farmers. To ensure stunning results, we decided to also add a desirability component to the project and mocked up a mobile experience. Results of research activities are unfortunately under NDA.

Design for deployment

Centraal Beheer Achmea

When

2014-2015

What

First of a kind user experience in the Netherlands to create awareness about the ‘pension-gap’

Wow

This experience was created inisghts first, and unlocked mulitple cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

In 2015, Centraal Beheer launched a new pension product. While working at VODW, I was part of the project team to develop the product, led the design team that designed the customer experience and guided the product development, deployment and launch of the product. Below are some early stage mockups.

Design for new dimensions

SAP RT3D Command Room

When

2022

What

A unique experiental design applied to a 3D enterprise virtual user experience build with Blender and Unity.

Wow

This is experiment enabled supply chain teams to work together globally on supply chain forecasting.

Together with the SAP Global Innovation team at Accenture, we created this experiment to invent new ways to manage integrated business planning  globally with the help of virtual reality technologies. The concept is based on a real world pain-point in the forecasting journey for global manufacturers. 

The SAP Realtime 3D Command Room provides a virtual environment that can be visited by any distributed team member from around the globe. Instead of seeing raw data in excels and screenshots from SAP desktop applications, the environment provides a realtime 3D overview of – and insights in – a supply chain and the possible issues in the integrated business planning and forecast identified by SAP systems. Global supply chain team members can communicate with plant managers and stakeholders and make decisions in real time, simulate forecasts in various circumstances and see the impact immediately, saving time in decision making processes.

I was responsible for the overall design, 3D modelling, project management and product ownership. I was also part of the distributed development team and led the development sprints as a scrum master.

In-headset screenshots were part of the onboarding documents created to explain the scenario to non SAP users at various events and demonstrations.

More 3D modelling

Design direction and management

Worldline

When

2017-2018

What

A convergence of digital platforms into a single one based on a global new corporate identity.

Wow

The platform truly reflects the position of Worldline as one of the largest global payment providers.

Worldline.com was the last corporate website project I was involved in as an individual contributor while working at at EY VODW. In the project I fulfilled multiple roles as UX and UI designer, Project Lead and Product Owner in the team at EY.  Worldline underwent a reorganisation, renaming and rebranding of the company. The stakes were high and we managed to help the international group of stakeholders to take the current scattered landscape of 64 websites and turn it into a single global platform that would have to compete with the likes of Adyen and Stripe.

Together with the small design team, I created a library of design components, a digital style guide for local marketing teams and a design system that hosted all possible combinations of languages, typography and graphic elements including guidelines for the different countries globally.

Web accessibility was a priority, so we needed to tweak the color proposals from the branding agency to make things legible, while preserving aesthetics. Also, we created extensive documentation to avoid abuse of the wide color palette the branding agency had created.

Design for deployment

The Rep Club

When

2021

What

A distinctive web presence for a Utrecht based health club design with a bold color scheme and layout.

Wow

The Rep Club was designed with online community in mind, boosting a digital training environment as a service.

The Rep Club is an exclusive fitness club in Utrecht (NL). I designed and developed a website based on their newly created identity. The manager of the club was a client of mine previously, for whom I created an online business selling fitness video content based on subscriptions. I took that idea and translated it to a gamified fitness workout training management system for The Rep Club.

You're going to kids-n-apps.com

Just to let you know… this link takes you to an external website.

Go there!

Youre going to arbiz.nl

Just to let you know… this link takes you to an external website.

Go there!

Coming soon.

I’m still working on the case study for this project. Would you like to stay updated? Let me know!

Design for new dimensions

3D modelling

When

2024-2025

What

Models and renders of various objects to explore modern modelling and rendering techniques in Blender.

Wow

Rendered examples used mainly for private purposes and practice.

As I found myself struggling to find the right models to create realtime 3D experiences with, in 2023, I started building skills in 3D modelling myself. I learned about the value of well build meshes with good topology, and the secrets behind textures, materials, shaders and lighting. Below are some the results of my efforts building 3D modelling skills for private projects and demos.

More 3D modelling

Design for deployment

Team Sonnemans

When

2022

What

After creation of the identity, I build a lean Wordpress website in 2 languages and companion brand assets.

Wow

This project clearly reflects the position of Maton Sonnemans as a leading business designer & strategist.

Team Sonnemans is the boutique consultancy of Maton Sonnemans. After shooting some photographs I provided him with a bespoke design for his personal brand and created a Wordpress powered website. With Team Sonnemans being a consultancy and all, I obviously provided a powerpoint template to go with it.