part 1 - The Urge to achieve

I’ve been trying to figure out if this urge in me comes from a longing for outer validation, a tap on the shoulders, a gain in confidence and so on. Or from a burning fire within myself that I need to feel in order to feel really alive. If I’m completely honest, I can’t answer it just yet. But just starting the journey on finding out, is interesting enough to question a lot of things in my life that I never opened up before. It’s almost exciting. Like getting to know someone better on a deeper level.

I’ve always loved sharing. To some extent. Not to gain validation outside of myself, but to inspire. Just as I love to be inspired too. This is very simple and clear to me. And so it has to be more complex.

Childhood: Like many of my generation, my parents divorced when I was 7 and co-parented me and my 4-year-younger sister while juggling their careers with the load of life and all its expectations. Leading things to always feel rushed. I remember mostly my mom (where I spent most of my time) always working and when she was home, cleaning, organising, driving from A to B, late working at home, just always so so busy. When I think of her now, images occur where she’s doing something. I can’t even imagine her sitting in a chair, doing nothing. She still mostly like that and it’s only now as she gets older I feel like she’s able to create more moments where she finally really relaxes. I say this absolutely without any resentment or placing blame. It was simply a fact, and I understand why life unfolded the way it did. It’s just a very important detail that has contributed to my ‘urge’ to always be productive. It’s what I saw as an example. I inhabit the idea that it’s good to be busy and get things done, all the time. So much that it became part of my identity.

To frame it clearly, I’m someone who can’t relax when my environment is a mess or my to-do list large. I remember when my son was born, these first months when they advise the mother to rest when the baby sleeps, all I could do was organise, work out, clean, wash, prep, … Not in a usual way, as I’m very aware this is true for most of us and we don’t always get the external help we need, but I had it in an extreme way.

Not only did I have partners expressing their concerns about my constant activeness but also very close friends, one actually almost intervening (Grateful).

I constantly challenge myself. When a big life task has been experienced, the other one is already waiting around the corner. I’m so hungry for so much.

My career is already quite demanding, time- and brain-consuming as it requires a lot of detail, perfection and a level of professionalism I worked hard for. It comes with a lot of expectations and the sensation that I always have to do slightly better than I did before. But I’m exactly as hard on myself privately. And I’m aware of this more than ever before. Why? Because I moved from the Belgium/Antwerp city life rat race to a beach town in Portugal and found myself almost (there was some improvement) living at the same pace for almost 3 years…It’s not the environment (only), it really is me. And so I really bumped into myself this year, realising I will never have that peace I so dearly long for, if I don’t fully open this subject. You can’t tell an introvert to become extraverted the next day. I’m aware this will always be a trigger but I do believe in change after realisation and work.

Living like this comes with a lot of pro’s and con’s. By my mid-30s I could write a giant list of things I did, saw, experienced and achieved which comes with a great sense of aliveness, pride and fulfilment. But it also drained my brain, body and being. The past few years I’ve felt particularly tired, almost exhausted when it comes to my social life. For years I thought this was due to having a baby and a toddler. But as my son turns 5 soon (less hands-on), I realise it’s still there. Other moms have 3 kids and can talk, wine and dine for hours, even gaining energy. I don’t. And I wonder if this is just who I am, or if it’s more related to my state of energy. I believe secondly, as it shifts and hasn’t always been the same.

I know from research how burning out works, and nearly went through a similar process myself many years ago (I took a sabbatical month and thought that was long haha), and I learned that in the end, it will make you feel like everything just exhausts you. We don’t wanna go there. I need to learn how to chill, in a lot of ways. Writing this is a big step towards that process.

Nothing makes me happier than browsing through inspiration, visiting beautiful places, museums, scrolling through endless visual projects online, in all kinds of areas. Yet I rarely give myself the time to actually do it. When I imagine an evening for myself to do this, I end up organising closets, waxing the kitchen, finding another thing to do to finish the house, and the list never ends. Why is it so hard to sometimes just plop onto the sofa, like my partner does, every time he comes back from something? Out of nowhere he can say, ahhhh time to relax a little. Without a worry on his mind. What a luxury in life. I don’t mean this in the typical ‘ughh men’-way but with true admiration and a slight bit of jealousy.

It’s ok. Things will figure themselves out when I don’t control it all the time. The laundry will be done tomorrow if not today. Why can’t I just automatically think like that?

Although from afar it might not look like it (always take social media with consideration), the past 3 years felt like a race without any breaks. Moving countries, buying an old house that came with an awful lot of paperwork, figuring things out, stress and everything you don’t want to know about when buying abroad. We fully renovated it the past 2 years (almost a new-build project, as nothing was in a decent state). I’ve spent numerous evenings a week on my computer, after work and post-school hours as I also try to be the most present mom possible. Gathering ideas, figuring out detail by detail, room after room. Hours of phone calls with my mom who’s the interior architect of the project, transforming all ideas into technical drawings and executing all of these with the contractor without any architect or project manager involved. I shot 10 campaigns for Amouage (Oman-based perfume house I’ve been working for over the past 6 years) with mostly a week or 5 to 8 concept prep time. I took on the job of creative director for 2 years for a Canadian brand working in the online luxury industry. Tried to travel to my home country every 3 months to keep friends and family happy and to make sure our son had the best of both worlds. Meanwhile trying to build a life and social network in our new country, integrate into school, the area, and everything that comes with it. Not to forget learning a new language and managing an independent activity here that comes with figuring out a whole new accounting system. In between all this, I dedicated every break I could find to my personal art collection that I’ve been working on since early 2024, without any deadline to take the pressure off, at least. To say the least, it’s been a lot.

And somehow, I’ve been finding myself caught in this web of going and going and going awithout being able to escape out of it. Until now (Chapter 2, releasing very soon).

Do we all believe success stems only out of hard labour? Like our parents’ and grandparents’ generation loves to claim: Only those who work hard make it in life. I’ve always been fascinated by this topic. The older I become, the stronger my realisation gets that life is actually more about time and how we spend it. We always think about the future, later on, later in life, then, next year, in 5 years, … Before we know it, we look back to 5 years ago and realise the ideas and dreams are still there while nothing has changed, really.

There’s a whole world of knowledge around the idea of stillness and the consequences it brings forward. And there’s also one about the consequences of constant activity. Obviously the second contains more bad news yet most of us follow that route. It doesn’t matter how many books I read about it, I still catch myself falling into the same routines after a moment of change. Did I get better at it? I can’t say. I do catch it sooner. And knowing you’re going too fast is always a first step in a different direction.

And then there are personal circumstances. We all find ourselves in such different situations. Financially, socially, mentally, physically, and so on. A lot of us believe we often don’t have a choice. And that’s that. End of the story. I’m not here to go against this, but I’ve always been a dreamer and will always believe in the ability to shape the life you truly want to live. A lot of life is choice. I catch myself at times making all kinds of excuses for why I do A or B. Your brain creates them, it creates a whole idea around why we do certain things. Out of safety mostly. The fear of losing things is too scary, bringing me to the last part of my research:

FEAR.

As I’m clearly trying to figure out my why, I think fear is a major aspect. Fear of stillness, boredom, missing out, nothingness, fear of pausing. The fear of losing opportunities, myself, what I worked so hard for. The fear of losing identity. The fear of resisting what became my feeling of safety.

We need to make a distinction between passion, fire, a drive that comes from certain achievement that fuels us and gives us energy AND productivity that comes from trauma, fear, childhood examples, and so many other places. It took me a long time to find out they might feel connected, but they are both very different fuels. All the above is not a problem, not my problem, it’s a challenge, my challenge.

I learned to look at this phrasing differently thanks to my sister-in-law (a medical doctor specialising in Physical & Sports Medicine and a PhD candidate in Regenerative Medicine) who wrote the recent article ‘Stress is not the enemy’ and contributes perfectly to this subject. The main question she ends with formed the answer I have been looking for, next to the why. The how:

Perhaps the better question isn’t: How do I eliminate stress from my life? But: What helps me recover? Because we don’t need a life without challenge. We need enough recovery to keep adapting to it. - Dr. Caroline Struijk

Time for some recovery. More in chapter 2 (following early September)

I’m very curious about people with similar experiences and especially where they think it’s coming from. Please drop a comment or personal message, as you want. It would help me in my personal process and could be a nice contribution to this article and further process.

L.

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It’s weird to me to not add more visuals. Should I do that sometimes? Or do we need them here? Also I usually run my text through AI, only to correct spelling mistakes or incorrect English, but didn’t feel like doing that today so sorry in advance for the mess.

Ever since I started my Master in the Antwerp school of Arts (september 2009) I didn’t feel like I belonged into one certain section: After my admission exam I decided to pick ‘advertising’ out of the other 2 options: ‘graphic design’ and ‘illustration’. The second day of school, someone explained to me how ‘advertising’ was much more about pleasing a larger group of people in correlation with marketing and that ‘graphic design’ was more a practice of “freedom and personal taste”. I switched immediately the next day.

Already that first year, I was one of the only few in my group who interpreted assignments differently than others and always had quite an artistic and selfish view on how I visualized things. I couldn’t help it. Never have I felt more different that I did at art school. While others would design the perfect poster with the usual typography and programs such as illustrator, indesign, and so on, I would combine my handmade drawings, collages, paintings with digital techniques in photoshop and the outcome would always be more of an experimental and just different… I was discovering my own perceptions but it wasn’t appreciated. Teachers didn’t like that… End of the year I’d always hear how I worked too much into one direction, how I already had a ‘style’ and that I had to be more flexible to interpret different outcomes within the field.

I never agreed and always carried a fire inside, bursting with anger and frustration as I couldn’t let out what was truly in. I wanted to succeed instead of overdoing the years so I forced myself to please teachers and kill my darlings. For the sake of fitting in with all the expectations. They loved what they were used to label as graphic design as it felt safe, correct, recognizable. How it is supposed to be and that is that. Later on, when I started working more internationally I discovered this was such a Belgian way of thinking and teaching. This is probably the reason I later on, never went into requests to come and talk about my work/studio/creative path.

I knew perfectly how to use the programs, how to create and print books, how to technically make everything but to me these were always such boring, repetitive results. Nothing really excited me much. I love to see things that feel new and refreshing, that come from somewhere unexpected and deeply personal.

In my master year, we had one large task. Something to go deep into and present in a medium related to graphic design, at the end of the year. It had to show your topic, research and your skills to transform this into something related to graphic design, like posters, a book, an installation, … I was always wildly enthusiastic about the imaginations around ‘water worlds’, their old movies, human-like creatures that would adapt to life in water, how they would look, behave, how their world would look. I could stare for hours at photos related to these magnificent worlds. But soon enough a teacher I really liked and looked up to, told me Louise, you’re not gonna get taken seriously with this subject and whatever it is how you’d present it.
This is the moment I knew for sure, I was more an artist than a designer and yet again, I had to kill my fantasy and do what was expected of me.

I ended up printing a large form of research in a big book about real facts: How global warming was causing sea levels to rise and what the consequences would be, globally. As well as parts of the world that would already be adapting to these changes such as schools on boats in Bangladesh, communities living on water, islands drowning and so on. A huge collection of research. I succeeded and graduated thankfully. But never as my true self. I don’t regret it as this book is now so fascinating as almost every prediction came through or is happening right now, back then (and still now) not being taken seriously but ok. We’re 12 years later and proof is all over. I’m drifting off. :p

To comfort myself during pushing all forces into something that didn’t come from my heart and wishes, I started creating collages for my own sake of fun. I just loved going through magazines and get inspired by photographs, details, colors and would always manipulate them digitally as I loved morphing, shape-shifting, metamorphosis, mutate, transformations. I would put all of these online and slowly started to become part of a first global wave of digital artists. Finally, instead of teachers breaking them down, I could post them online and get a positive audience, truly interested in what I was doing. Algorithms didn’t exist and it felt like there weren’t a ton of people doing that, at the time. So I remember it as one of the most exciting times of my life where I really found a creative outlet and where my body started guiding me into the things I truly loved and was good at doing.

As most young people, after graduation I was expected to fully provide for myself and had worked in enough restaurants and cafe’s to know I never wanted to fumble around with plates any longer. I became fully self employed only a few months after graduation. As a graphic designer. This was what I knew, what I studied an where I could make money with. So I started taking little branding projects in combination with some cover and flyer designs. I practiced a mix between actual tight design and artistic visuals. I never felt more free than these first years of working. Combining this world of art with the world of design set me apart from most other designers and clients approached me for exactly that combination.

Finally I wasn’t being told what to do by teachers any longer and clients requested the style I couldn’t help but practice. I did what I found beautiful and in most cases, it worked and clicked. All the jobs I ever took that requested things that didn’t fit whit my own taste, learned me to scan requests from the start and to become selective. I learned to say no early on, which I consider a good thing. Don’t get me wrong: designers who can change styles and live up to all kinds of visual expectations are fantastic. I, personally, was just never cut out to do anything else than my own interpreations. I can’t help it. It’s a gift and a burden at the same time.

An internship at Sagmeister & Walsh design studio in New York after 2 years of working, showed me how working for a boss was also not something that made me happy. It was a life changing experience for sure, in many ways, so I encourage everyone to do it. But it didn’t make me happy. Without it I would never have known how much my body forced me to go my own ways. Instinct only shows up when you’re in the wrong places. I learned like no other to trust my instincts and to follow them, without much thinking. It lead me to where and who I am.

The years after New York, I started exhibiting and sell my personal artworks and creations so to call. I mixed my personal work with client projects > I worked with photographers at first and had a first taste of ‘directing’. Then I started to create my own images as also here, I feel like I wanted to follow my own vision without having to consider others. Even here, I don’t fit in, as I would never call myself am actual photographer. I capture visuals and I create end results, but the technical skills around photography are less my area and I consider it the work of a good team and myself.

I never liked titles but people feel more comfortable when they can label and box someone, so when I explain what I do, I’ve mainly been using ‘creative director’ as the term. Nowadays, everyone calls himself one but strictly, A real creative director sets the vision and standard for the creative work a team produces, translating a brand's or client's goals into a coherent visual and conceptual direction. They lead and guide a team of creatives, pushing towards the envisioned/promised end result. Ultimately, they're accountable for the quality and originality of the final output, not just managing people but making the calls that shape what gets made. It’s a big responsibility that comes with a good amount of stress. But it’s also really cool to sell ideas and be able to execute them on a larger scale.

If it were only that, I would have finally found my box but no… I still create my own artworks. Now evolved to abstract paintings on canvas with digital features hidden into. Where no one tells me what to do or when. My brain is still exploring other creative outlets of ideas I’ve been browsing for long. I NEVER knew how my life would look like in a year, what I would do, professionaly and after 12 years of running the studio under my own name, I still don’t know how 2027 will unfold. This is something you learn to accept and live with. But with this great uncertainty also come a lot of moments of doubt, insecurity and fear. Especially as a mom, living in a country where you’re highly depending on a remote income to sustain the life we’ve built. Life in Portugal is not as cheap as one might think. But that’s a whole other topic.

As of society, I always fought with not having a label, one title or just a clear explanation when people ask what do you do. I didn’t like it for so long. Getting older and becoming more confident helped me to turn tables and embrace it as a strength.

When I think about it, it actually sickens me how labels rule certain creative fields. A talented fashion designer is a nobody when he didn’t participate the highly demanding, expensive, torturing fashion academy studies. People cannot become very good at something when they lack the official degree. I understand the benefits of one, I own one myself, but let us be honest. A lot of talent goes to waste because of all these stigmas. Of course, certain professions can be totally excluded out of this discussion I merely talk about creative professions.

The art world for example. You cannot be a real artist when you also do commercial work. You have to live in a basement with no money and practice every day without any other care in the world and ideally hate social media and promoting yourself. Please also dress as special as you can so you definately don’t compare to a normal person. No, you’re artistic. You have to act weird and talk nonsense, the more the better. Also your work has to has deeper meanings and especially a ton of research behind it. The perfect soup to be the perfect artist. Ahhh this felt like a relief just writing it down.

I just hate this, I hate labels and everything around it. What does it even mean. Who makes the rules, who decides this and why is this world such a stiff, boring facade? What I admire more than a label is how consistent someone is, how passionate and how personal work is to the one who creates it. That is authenticity to me, real mastership and a personal signature. It’s rare, but admirable.

If more people would follow their guts and step away from fear, more talent would be out there. More people would start somewhere, try, create experience, get better, dare to show and do, learn, get super good at things. Instead, we all break each other down and let fear take over and push everyone into directions that feel safe. Parents do this with their kids from a young age. There’s no future in this, do this instead.

I’m rather new here on Substack and even this became a total new creative outlet for me. Again I feel like I’m sliding into an even newer direction without being able to define it yet. It gives me so much inspiration and a new way to finally share some depth behind the usual images I shaere. I’m so used to posting everything I make, create, find inspiring without much context because who gives a damn about text these days on social media but this platform gives me connection again. I couldn’t imagine gaining already 160 subscribers in a couple of months, people who actively signed up to read all of this and get an Email every post. 2 paid subscribers who openly shared they wanted to support my work ( will never forget you!) ;). It means so much after so sharing so many years on instagram. Funny enough, getting around 11.000 views per post but only 150 likes, maybe 30 if it’s art instead of a portrait and perhaps a comment or 2, 4. Everyone is watching but it feels almost like a ghost town. There’s no conversation.

I learned to trust the flow of life, to live knowing nothing is fixed and ever evolving. To wake up every morning being grateful for what I have an knowing anything could be lost at any given moment. I know most of us need reminders to realize this but I teached myself to do so daily, in the little things and little moments and this helps tremendously with bad days, bad periods. You know, to get out of them, to get out of your head. From experience I learned that the unknown, far outside the labels, not even near any kind of box, lies the very unexpected, the life-changing, that something that truly matters. I lived it a couple of times and even just recently. I don’t want to get in too much personal detail about this, but let me say that I could have never imagined to sit here in my beach bed, next to a pool we designed ourselves, in front of a house we fully renovated exactly how we wanted with every material we imaged, 5 min. from the beach where the sun shines most of the year. How can this even be my reality if I think about only 2 years ago, where none of this was in any of our expectations. I remember we even bought the old (unlivable) house thinking we could always resell if we didn’t make it. This is why I love the unknown, the no-label, the flow, without wanting to sound too floaty. Even I am getting a bit nauseous by all these podcasts and books about manifestations. However if you zoom out and look at the one big lesson behind it, to me it has been true and an ever ongoing learning process.

The last 2 years I co-designed a house renovation and wildly loved it. I can’t wait to do another. Is this another side of my creative self? Why did I not know this before? Why am I suddenly so interested in materials, how things are being done, how materials react, how this and that would fit together? … What qualities of my parents (architects) live inside of me? Why are they only coming out now? Is it age related? Why is life so fun when you start doing all kinds of different things? Why are my days so different from one another? How will my son ever explain what his mom did? Does it even make sense to have a studio? Do I need a bigger one? What if I created a piece of furniture? Would I be allowed, not being a product developer? What if I made a product? I love scents and been working for the industry for 6 years, what if I want to create a scent, based on what I love to smell instead of what I envision with my eyes?

Thank you for hanging in there with however I’m wanting to be this year and the next. Your support means everything and I can’t wait to do even more, of my own thing. Maybe even one day without any client being involved… I might like that.

L.

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Also check out Caught my eye 01 and Caught my eye 02

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Nowadays people often first assume these images are AI… An unavoidable impulse that can’t be blamed, given the rise of perfectionist, prompt-generated images circling the professional industry. Perhaps this phenomenon makes me even more proud of what we make. We already see this happening now, but I truly believe more and more brands are going to want to make a statement about how important craft and manual process are for them. Especially luxury brands who work with high-quality, rare ingredients, where soil, origin and nature are core. The labour that goes into creating the product has to be reflected in the images it sends out. That’s the essence of true meaning, in my opinion. The process behind things will become even more meaningful than it ever was. At least, this is what I want to believe. I am not stating I dislike AI. I use it often to express ideas, make alterations or even to get inspired and I do think it's important for people in my industry to embrace it rather than to work against it. Bitterness brings us nowhere. To me, it can co-exist next to the world I find rather more interesting myself. Not only to ‘look at’ but also the ‘way to get there’.

In the 12.5 years of running my studio, I’ve somehow always attracted the exclusive luxury industry more than the fast-forward markets. I created a lot of visuals and direction for jewelry brands, winemakers, olive oil creators, luxury outdoor furniture, architecture and so on. I like to work within a pared-down ‘concept’, actualize it and refine it in its deepest corners. I like to go for a sense of perfection, high quality and sophistication, not only within the materials I prefer to use but also in the way we capture it in video or image. I like to set high expectations with the people around me, and I truly believe that this stress/fear of failure and tenseness creates effort in experimenting towards an end result that otherwise wouldn’t occur.

Everyone is used to seeing these visuals I create for Amouage with a beautiful perfume bottle in the middle, but last week the idea came to me to remove the bottles for the first time and focus on the universes that were created by hand. Worlds that carry and/or float around the end product. To appreciate the environment, craftsmanship and effort that go into making these miniature worlds as close to reality as possible. It’s quite rare to find fragrance houses that go beyond the usual way of portraying scent. You can already image how for example a citrus fragrance portrays its visuals. Yes, with a lemon. For sure also a yellow one and a leaf or flower here and there. It’s highly fascinating how Amouage goes way beyond this and creather a whole story around it’s scents rather than just focus on the ingredients used in it. This is what makes working for them a lot more exciting. They dare to step outside of the usual and therefore make themselves stand out, even more. I think there’s something really beautiful about the vast calmness of these minimal sets. I selected my favourite ones from 3 campaigns I loved working on. ‘Guidance’ + ‘The Essences Act I & II’.

If you’d like to read about and see all the behind the scenes of these campaigns > Click here

Feel free to leave a comment as I love to interact on this platform and also subscribe for occasional free posts about my professional life and personal renovation project in Portugal and and and and ;)

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If you wanna see my first visual distraction board > Caught My Eye 01 ◉_◉

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Exactly 2 weeks ago we moved into our unfinished beach house. Totally unprepared, in a rush I will remember forever and into a house totally unready. No kitchen, no showers, a bath with slightly warm water that took an hour to fill and luckily, a toilet. It’s been wild living together with 10 men in and outside the house, from 8am till 6pm. (Saturdays included) Sundays got a whole other meaning and it looks like it’ll be like this for a while longer. As nice as the things that came together look, I’m not ashamed to say how much energy, effort, patience, heartbreak, problem-solving, hours and investment it took from us. We (almost) made it and I feel my whole body and being needs a long recovery from all this. One thing I learned for the future because weirdly said I would do it again: Make sure you can stay in your current living situation as long as possible, do not move in too early. Especially with a 4 year old. Our son is used to being dragged into our crazy lives, sleeping here and there and molded into a flexible human being. But here it was different and I still feel he gets a bit lost here in this turbulent situation. Every morning I can’t wait for him to go to school to avoid the stimulation and chaos. That being said, we learned how to embrace this adventure now and the fun fact is, we’re finally in that stage where you can really see that, every day, we move a little step forward to a finished product to fully enjoy.

All the above does not mean that I’m not absolutely insanely grateful for being able to have done this and to experience a fully curated dream home where every corner was born out of hours of research and personal taste. It’s the first time I get to see my vision come to life in the architectural world and more precisely, large scale. It’s so cool to see how all the different materials we wanted belong together in a way and how experiments turned out to be actually practical and just, work. It almost feels like I found a new purpose.

There’s something about unfinished work. The people that have been following me or my work for quite some time know how important ‘process’ is, in everything I do. It’s there where the truly pleasing things happen. It’s only there where I discover real beauty and as I often say, it’s almost every time slightly better than the final result. I didn’t want to wait and photograph a perfectly polished, finished product, with every book intentionally placed, every flaw removed. I want to show the reality of now and I already know that some corners or rooms will never look as pure as they do now, before final curtains, art on the white clay walls, finishes and furniture covers their minimalistic beauty. Most color additions will come from the surrounding garden, starting next week and I hope one day we’ll also have doors, too ;) Enjoy the photo stream below

Curious how you liked this one. Would love to interact and don’t forget to inspire me with more similar movies/atmospheres.

L.

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L.

We’re approaching three years of living in Portugal. Looking back, it has been such a crazy wild ride and yet exactly what we needed to do to mold our dream into a reality that feels sustainable. This didn’t just happen. We chose it and dove fully in without rethinking it even once. I’m very convinced that this is the only way to create any kind of real change. I never believed in halfway approaches… You do it or you don’t.

Many tend to prefer a safer approach so they don’t feel like they are jumping into the deep end all at once and can keep a certain amount of safety and certainty. I admit that the thought of six months here and six months there crossed our minds, but I quickly understood that it’s not really possible to build a life somewhere that is feasible long term if you are not always “there”. I’d say especially with kids involved. It only takes a while before you really want all your belongings in one place to get the sensation of “a real home and a body at rest”.

Don’t get me wrong: I also love a great adventure and really see myself traveling for six months or more one day again, but this move was a different type of idea. We really wanted to build a new life, create a new source of income, learn a new language and have a closer connection to what matters a lot to us.

I’m going to tell our story for the first time and I’ll touch on some major questions I often get. I did at first but now I rarely reply to Portugal-related questions I receive from people with like-minded ideas or just travel related questions as it really became overwhelming. When I do, I try to be careful as one life story isn’t the same for someone else and I would hate to be partly responsible for choices that would work out differently. When it comes to tips, advice, favorite places, restaurants, stays and so on, I’m planning on gathering them here soon. If you’re someone who asked me and I didn’t reply, please forgive me it’s just hard to keep up and I’ll think of you soon. I mean well ;)

There are people who followed our path and tell me how grateful they are that I shared our journey on socials in tiny bits because it fully changed their lives in the most positive way. So I realize the time came to share a bit more publicly but repeating again: It’s such a personal experience and dangerous to “sell” to anyone tempted by beautiful beaches and sunshine. It’s only now that I can really reflect longer term on certain things and truly answer what it has been like. What can you say after six months to a year? The thrill and excitement are still alive and the experience is very different in that first stage.

Every time we get back from traveling, Lisbon airport feels like home. Like returning from a holiday straight into another one. Traveling has always been a big part of me and my curiosity. From a young age, when I was in a different country, I could always feel I belonged ‘somewhere else’. I loved different cultures, simpler lives, nature, beaches, the warm touch of the sun and late summer evenings. A different way of living. I found it fascinating and always wondered how it would be to grow up like this.

I value mornings, the way one wakes up, and nothing compares to holiday mornings where you wake up to the sound of birds and see a beautiful day approaching. It’s the first of March while writing this chapter. I woke up at six (naturally, before the rest of the apartment) and have been enjoying a pink-purple sunrise. I created a life where I can experience this most days of the year with this favorite feeling I used to only encounter briefly and it’s worth everything.

I’m someone with a positive attitude who would make anything work, so it’s important to say I was happy in Antwerp, Belgium too. It’s not that we ran away from negativity or aversion to our own country. We both had a great life there but it started to feel “small” in terms of the overall growth we were hoping for.

We both longed for new experiences in different fields. How would it be to just start over somewhere else? What people would we meet? Who would I become?What chances would we get? How would my work evolve? How would Alexis grow up in a different place? And so on.

To me, gut feeling is something to follow and chase. These are questions coming from our consciousness, important not to ignore. I always followed my intuition strongly and made the best decisions in life only through that. It’s a characteristic I could always trust and loved throughout my whole life: The way I ended my school, travel to Japan for work at 17, my choice of study, my internship in New York, the apartment I bought at 24, choosing my partner, how I create my art, and motherhood, are all examples of things that changed my life in a very uplifting way. Portugal was one of them.

I’m so lucky that my partner felt the same way. Separate from me, he also cherished this hunger and curiosity, mixed with a good amount of adhd which creates the perfect elixir. Something I learned after three years is that you really need to be two people who truly want this. It’s a team decision as certain things can be difficult for one person while easy for the other. Job-wise, for example. You both look for ways to create income and they might not always align at the same time, so you lean on each other. One might make a group of friends sooner than the other. There are many examples.

At the time we moved, Alexis, my son, was exactly one and a half years old. The months prior to our move in 2023 were such an important chain of influences. When he was born I stayed home with him for nine months. It was during this time that I discovered I had different ideas about motherhood. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him at daycare after three to four months, so I decided to not take in new projects for a while and stayed with him. (Spent all my savings after three months of earning the bare minimum financial compensation. Yes, I have a very high opinion on this topic and I find it shameful that a country like Belgium is so far behind supporting new (self employed) mothers AND fathers). Anyhow, I discovered this long period of home-staying was quite a rare thing to do in Belgium. Most of my friends would go back to work after three months as they didn’t have any other choice and that was that. They cry, get used to it, the babies as well and everyone continues. It made me think and I realized this system was not aligned with my beliefs and began thinking of ways to return to my career while also giving my son the best life, closer to his parents not only the first years but merely his whole childhood. I don’t want to deepen into my own childhood but I can say I spent a whole lot of time at school, long after school ended and I felt very unhappy about it. The sensation of ‘home’ is so important to me.

After these 9 months at home, I brought Alexis to daycare for three months and while he was okay-ish, I absolutely hated those days, thinking of the lack of care takers and the pressure they are under. I think my point is clear that I believe in real change, when it comes to these topics.

We left on a two-month trip to Bali where we celebrated his first birthday. Long story short, we discovered there that we wanted to take some unexpected risks and decided to move there. Yes… I don’t know what we were thinking but it was clear parenthood and a tropical country released the beasts inside of us. We came back to Belgium around Christmas and told everyone we knew we were leaving soon. Telling everyone was partly sharing our excitement but it also put pressure on the idea to make sure we would really move forward. (A free tip for the doubters) At the time Alexis was still so small that we didn’t realize how such a long distance would impact family bonds. We quickly started brainstorming about how it would complicate many other things and one night we both shared how Portugal might be a better option, to say the least. We had traveled there right before I got pregnant and even had these conversations back then. It was just so difficult to see this plan financially and professionally, in the long run.

We decided to do it and figure it all out once we got there. Take a deep dive, as they say, where miracles happen. Right? We knew nothing, only the feeling that we really liked it there. We booked a weekend trip early February, just the two of us, to visit the places we marked as “possible home”.

It didn’t became our destination but I always loved the Algarve and Alentejo for their open landscapes, slow pace, cork trees, vineyards and quiet villages. It’s here where we fell in love with the country and culture and where you can own land without being bothered by close neighbors. But it’s important to realize these places can feel very remote during the winter months and that the two vibrant cafés might become very boring after some time. This form of isolation was not exactly what we were looking for. We wanted to be close to Lisbon for numerous reasons such as airport mobility (we travel a lot), city life (when we’d miss it), my job (working with creatives, shooting, …) and a wider variety of activities especially during the winter months.

We visited different areas around the city, all around 45 minutes from town, and ended up by a beach that felt like everything we loved. A residential area south of Lisbon, close to the Atlantic coast, known for pine forests, golf courses and a relaxed, nature-focused atmosphere. It’s about 35 minutes from the city centre and near the beaches of Costa da Caparica. We visited a real estate office during that weekend, just to hear they only handled sales, not rentals and like a miracle this older man stood up from behind his desk saying he knew another older couple who might have something for us. Still feels like a weird miracle. We could drive there ten minutes later to meet them and see the place.

Here I am, three years later, sitting on the very old fake leather couch of their rental apartment. Coincidence or fate? I think it’s such a story and I’d rather believe the second.

So we came back home to Antwerp from our little trip and re-announced our move in… eight weeks! We set an almost unrealistic date as we couldn’t wait, but it also helped us actually do the work that was needed. (another free tip) I would definitely set twelve weeks if I were to do it all over again.

Anyhow, in those eight weeks we rented out our house, packed all our belongings, stored half with family and friends and filled a small van with our bikes, some chairs, baby stuff and clothes to come with us. We rented out my studio, said our goodbyes, bought a Jeep and off we went.

We arrived in Portugal completely burnt out, drained and exhausted. I think we all got sick pretty soon and realized we had gone far beyond our limits. I took those first months to “land”, browse future possibilities and re-create my career. The why we moved was already felt from the very first day. I remember sitting in a taxi from the airport, driving over the bridge with Alexis sleeping on me and realizing that a lifelong dream was becoming reality from that day onwards. It was one of those moments where you feel completely present.

As much as it drives me crazy at times when my extreme urge to get things done comes up, the pace of life really is slower here and it makes you realize how used we are to putting weight on things that actually don’t matter that much. I do have to admit that with the situation I’m in now, finalizing a big renovation while managing my work, the pace of life I was used to has slowly crept back in. It’s not only the environment you live in that gives you “less pressure”; a big part of this also comes from yourself. You choose what you take on on a daily basis, and I’ll probably always be an engine when it comes to carrying a certain load.

April until the end of October feel like summer months to me (considering I’m Belgian), and the cherry on top is that the temperature is quite stable, so you know what to expect on a daily basis - something we’re not used to even during Belgian summers. Evenings are slightly cooler, which I adore. Nothing better than a cozy sweater after a hot beach day. November until the end of March feel like winter and we tend to get a good amount of rain, but overall the temperatures are soft compared to Belgium, especially if you go further south.

What a difference it makes to spend that one or two hours after school pickup at the beach, in a park, or simply anywhere outdoors. As a parent I promised myself to only do things with my son that also please me. You won’t find me at the indoor pool or trampoline theme park and I can’t describe how much I wanted to give him this different lifestyle. It’s so nice that we get to experience this both for the first time. People are extremely nice to children here and welcome theme truly everywhere.

Obviously nature has always been a huge inspiration for my art, and now living closer to it has taken that in a completely different direction. I haven’t felt as creative as I do now in such a long time. I’m someone with a nervous system that is easily triggered, someone who looks for challenges but also needs peace and quiet in between handling them. Five years prior to the move I started exploring how to reduce stress and create a life where I could have it all while maintaining my sanity at the same time, and living here helps tremendously with that.

Portuguese was always in my top three languages. I’m learning a great mix of the local and Brazilian Portuguese from everyone around me and it’s fascinating to see how immersing yourself in a new language becomes a natural process over time. I wish I had more headspace to absorb it faster, but I’m not rushing myself; it’s a very difficult language and one can only do so much. Right?

The time we spend together as a family is intense and unique, in the most positive sense. One of the reasons I made this decision was definitely out of fear of ever looking back at this phase and realizing you weren’t really around or present because of all the pressure. I always hated the rat race of city life and after every holiday, even with the best intentions, it would creep back into my system just a week or two later. That doesn’t happen here and every day feels like a fresh, unexpected, exciting new adventure. It’s been like this for quite a long time now and I hope it’s here to stay.

As much as we love our families, it’s also just a two-and-a-half-hour flight away. Over the past couple of years we flew back and forth quite a lot. I do admit that I slightly overestimated the easy-ness of this. When we are in Belgium we don’t really have a place to stay for long. We are always living out of a suitcase, jumping from one parent’s guest room to the other, which is not ideal and definitely something we need to find a solution for. You really need your private space as a family. It’s also extremely hard to see everyone you’d like to see, as it’s exhausting to move from one place to another all the time. Especially with kids involved. You hurt people and it hurts me to not be able to cut myself in all these pieces but I’m learning to accept this. So we decided to travel back less often for now, until we find a way to simplify this. Maybe longer stays during the summer, for example. Some people visit us regularly and here we try to find the balance of our daily rythm that is work, school and living life here while spending holiday time with our loved ones who are here to enjoy the sun and the sea. Challenging at times where work comes first, I admit.

We’re social people by nature, Marco especially. He has no social limits, whereas I always need to recharge in solitude after any kind of event. But we made friends quickly and we’re still meeting many fun people. It’s a funny phase: in the beginning you’re overly enthusiastic because it’s a bit of a survival instinct. Then over time you realize certain people simply feel more effortless to meet and you start actually clicking. Now I feel like I’m a bit more protective of my free time and who I let into it, because it can become overwhelming as well. People often worry about moving countries and making friends, but for us this happened quite naturally, although it obviously also depends on where you live. It was a lot more difficult, and still is, to meet local Portuguese people, who tend to be a bit more reserved. I did meet a few though, so I don’t want to generalize too much.

Another great asset is traveling around the country, something I want to make more time for. Close around us are amazing beaches, two hours away is Aljezur, three hours the Algarve, Nazaré is incredible, Évora as well, and the north we still have to explore. The options feel endless and it gives us the opportunity to take little breaks in our own country. Just getting in the car and going. I love that. One of my favorite childhood memories is my parents putting me in the back of the car when evening fell - blankets, pillow, cookies, music - and driving off to Spain. The excitement felt like freedom.

After one year, we fell in love with an old Portuguese house that we bought and fully renovated. We’re moving in around the end of April this year, exactly 2 years later. Here’s some renovation inspiration. As predicted, it took us quite a long time to figure everything out regarding licensing, loans, who to work with and who not, and so on. It caused a lot of stress and I’m afraid I have to admit it’s not for the faint of heart. The way things work and move around here is far from ideal when it comes to creating progress, and it’s something you simply have to learn to live with. Nevertheless, as with everything I do, I always try to find the right people and stick with them. The whole creation process has been fun and I would definitely do it all over again. We will.

The scariest part of this whole adventure has been the professional side. The housing market in Portugal exploded some years ago, resulting in very high renting and buying prices that absolutely do not balance with the average Portuguese income, creating a huge crisis for local people. Most expats depend on a remote source of income and that’s also the case for us. Luckily I was already working solely with international clients and was able to set up a team here for shootings, creation and production in-house. This too has been a long process to reach where I am now, but the outcome would never have been the same in Belgium. I feel as if possibilities and creativity grew by being here. I’ve been working like a maniac to build our dreams and it certainly has been rough at times, but it has all been worth it. I feel like I need to get deeper on this in another post.

Thank God we made this life change when Alexis was only one year old. He never really “felt” the transition, speaks fluent Portuguese now and goes to a private school five minutes from our place. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to go to the beach, which proves he’s already a little bit of a local who will probably never truly appreciate where he lives ;)

I have SO much more to say but have to end somewhere. I’d love to get questions on everything I forgot to write and will also post something this year about my favorite stays around here. I always love to receive tips the other way around. Thank you if you made it into these last words. Tchau Tchau!

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( ˘ ³˘)ノ°ﾟº❍｡

Everything has been pretty serious lately, and last year felt quite heavy after experiencing a miscarriage (to give some context), leading me to step into the new year with an amazing sense of carelessness and a lust for fun. It’s quite nice and new to me, as I never dealt very well with stress, and even though I’m in a period of time where my stress levels should be through the roof due to circumstances, I feel calm, relaxed, funny, in control, and just floating around. Which is actually the main goal of all the research I’ve done around how to cope with things you basically can’t control. So, I don’t know how I got here, but I like it, and I finally seem to realize that everything doesn’t really mean anything and that we only need to enjoy all the weirdness around us.

I don’t know where I’m going with this post, but I felt like starting another draft that I actually want to finish tonight, so I’m going to share some cool inspiration that had a big impact on our almost ready house, even though everything turned out (or will turn out very differently from what). Inspiration is always cool, but to me, it’s more of a learning process or a push towards things that I eventually change, make my own, manipulate, or just save somewhere in the back of my mind for… another day. It’s the push in the right direction.

I added a bunch of photos that inspired me on the bottom of this publication so I’m not annoying people that read on their phone.

Some lessons and things I’ve learned during our first project: every house requires its own unique choices. A beautiful idea in a photo might totally not work in a different house. First, you need to fall in love with a house (VERY important to me), then you get to know it inside out, and while molding it into a conceptual idea that fits the house, your lifestyle, and its location, you find out what materials and choices actually add value to the home.

I always love homes that don’t feel too big. I love small, tiny, little. It’s cozy, and you have to be inventive with your space and live more minimally, owning fewer “things.” Something that has been triggering me when I was younger. I certainly won’t show you what my rooms looked like when I was a teenager, but every year now I own less, and it’s only making me feel better. In certain areas, I won’t ever take this to extremes, as I love my shoes and clothes way too much, but you get my point. Our house won’t be very large, so we’ve been very precise about using every possible space in a very fun way.

Built-in: I love houses where things are “custom built in,” so you don’t have to work with a lot of “loose” furniture. On the other hand, you want rooms to be versatile and grow with you and your kids, and be easy to adapt. So we’re trying to find a nice balance here, for ourselves.

White walls give me a fresh feeling, like mornings always tell you, “today is a new day.” I do love some color though, and in our case it’s mostly fresh green tones from the surrounding garden that are pulled in through large open windows. I’ve also been working on a new art collection for about 2.5 years now, so we’ll have lots of colorful art to hang as well.

I would never be able to decorate fully finished at once. A house needs a soul, and a soul grows over the years, piece by piece. We love to travel and bring stuff home that has a story, meaning, and memory to it (sounds so typical lately but it’s true in our case). I picture myself changing furniture all the time at the beginning, a bit like how I build visuals and sets. I add, erase, change, and so on until I’m satisfied with a good composition that works (until I’m tired of it).

Space: We’ve been renting a small apartment for almost 3 years now, and we fell in love with a detail that truly made life more fun there. It has two entrances facing each other, and when they’re open, you can run circles and easily reach every room. Everything is connected and open — very fun for kids to run around and overall cozy. We approached this concept downstairs and created ways to reach every room from both sides, so nothing feels enclosed, but you still create cozy corners. We are extremely lucky with light in Portugal, so it also creates a beautiful way to let the sunshine in, touching everything at the same time. Obviously light is a huge factor of just any home. It’s therapeutic in any way and could be one of the reasons we moved countries too ;) More on this later.

I like houses with soul. I never understood why homes are always photographed and styled as if no one actually lives there. I love to come into homes that smell like cooking, fresh showers and wet gardens. I love art, photos, decoration, flowers (until recently) and just a certain character that feels unique.

We are not located in the part of Portugal where you easily get a 500-square-meter garden, so for this part we had the idea of designing a little green oasis, hidden behind the surrounding walls, just enough for a few facilities like swimming, eating, BBQing, chilling, and relaxing. We will have a large terrace on the first floor to overlook it, and this should become a continuation of the garden.

Materials: I love sustainable materials that last forever, or at least for many years. I like how natural stone lives, stains, breathes, changes color, can get wet, and so on. We chose natural stone for the floors, kitchen, and bathrooms — all made in Portugal. It’s also fun to stick with one or two materials that come back in a different way at different places, so there’s a connection. I’m attracted by this idea as it brings concept to a home.

I can write more for hours and add 50+ more photos so I guess I’ll continue this one day. Just like the house, it’s continuous and it will grow. Santé.

I encountered this house in Mexico somewhere in a magazine a few weeks ago, and it perfectly aligns with what we are doing with our outside area - a small oasis of pool, terrace, and house. What more do you need? I love Mexican houses, and especially the steel window frames they use(d) a lot. Such a different climate, which makes it less of a nightmare. I love the simplicity of this home. I’ve been to Mexico twice and some of the architecture I’ve seen there left an impression.

Of course, Mies van der Rohe has been a name I grew up with as he’s one of my mothers favorites. I love how our house has one corner that slightly reminds me of this. Slightly.

In the last two years, my perspective on this has quietly shifted. Ever since my internship in New York, my hunger for international clients grew, as there is more room for my creativity. My projects became larger and the workload increased. This led me to expand my team during prep days and when shooting on set. I’m used to doing everything alone, so this part hasn’t been easy, but it made a lot more possible and I started learning the advantages of it in so many ways. It’s also where I learned that it does not matter who is involved - in the end, the final vision is within my head and hands, and only I can bring out what needs to come out, exactly how I envision it. For the first time ever, I experience a certain ‘calm’ around my profession. I’m more confident in what I do and less scared of losing grip. I believe in my vision much more than before.

‘Making choices’ has always come easy to me. In fact, it’s what I truly enjoy. I’m a visual person and I know exactly what I like. Ask me to recall a memory from 3 months back, or 5, or 10… I have no idea. Ask me to explain a photo taken a month or 5 years ago and I can explain every bit of it. I need visuals, visual stimulation. I’m one of these people who becomes happy in beautiful environments because it stimulates and inspires me. Whether it’s in my private or professional life, I direct everything around me, everywhere I go. Even when traveling, just unpacking suitcases and making the place more my own is something I love.

The above is a brief introduction to what led me into the role of a creative director for brands, and how I became immersed in the world of art and scent.

It was the summer of 2020, right in the middle of Covid, when I was introduced to Renaud Salmon, creative director of The House of Amouage. He was looking for a contemporary artist who also understood the world of design, photography, and client work. A Belgian production house set up the meeting and, after a pitch, I got my first campaign job for Amouage, right when Renaud started executing his new brand vision for the fragrance. As I also had a background in graphic design, I did the designing of the re-packaging look they have now and created over 100 artworks for each packaging.

It’s important to understand that Amouage is a high-end fragrance house founded in Oman, known for blending Middle Eastern olfactory traditions with French haute-parfumerie craft. Its perfumes are rich, complex, and opulent - often built around frankincense, myrrh, amber, woods, and florals. They are designed to evoke a sense of luxury, heritage, and artistic storytelling. In all the work I did for the brand over the past 5 years, its country’s nature, landscapes, flora, and colors have been the central point of attention. Renaud is amazing to work with, as he is more open-minded than most other perfume companies. Quickly explained: most companies would show a piece of lemon for a citrus scent and it ends there. Amouage is more mystical: they create a universe around each scent, which makes it very exciting for me to explore how we can envision this in reality - on set, in video, in stores, etc. They pull you into an experience of scent, rather than taking everything literally. Even if people would rather buy something they understand better, they stand their ground, and I truly respect this. We created a beautiful flow of working together.

Renaud and me in his studio at the head office of Amouage, during my visit in Oman, october 2025.

It wasn’t always as smooth as it is now when it comes to deadlines. It took the company time to grow, adapt, and prepare better, and it took me communicating the needs to get to where we are now, with longer deadlines to prepare better work and create nicer, more refined outcomes. Experimentation is hugely important in all of my work, so it takes weeks of preparation before shooting. First, I get briefed by the client, where they explain the universe and vision. We exchange thoughts on colors, materials, and details. We discuss possibilities, deadlines, difficulties, and so on.

My partner in life, who has been involved in all the less creative details for many years now, took over the production side in mid-2025. Having in-house production is of huge value to me, as I have full control over everyone involved, and since it’s a daily job, I can always ping-pong between everyone directly, leading to faster results and a very nice, cohesive way of working. Everything we do feels transparent and honest, which is also a major benefit for the client. When I moved to Portugal in 2023, I had to revise my whole work setup, which was extremely scary, but it led me toward a much greater way of working. We shoot in Lisbon with an amazing team of mostly Portuguese people, who are, by the way, a dream to work with, as they truly know what hard work means. A good energy on set and a smile here and there is key. 😉 My studio is located in the renovated garage of my future house (still under construction, see this post) around 35min driving from Lisbon.

I always try to digitally translate my ideas into a moodboard to show the client what they can more or less expect. It’s very hard to do, but inevitable when working with a bigger company where more than two people have to understand what is coming, to release budget and to align expectations.

Then the fun part starts - EXPERIMENT. Gathering all the materials from different sources. Portugal is a great country full of nature, so I’m often out looking for props, stones, rocks, branches, leaves, sand, … It’s mostly me who looks for things, as I just know what to look for, but working more and more with set dressers, I’m learning to outsource more. Last summer, for example, we shot a campaign with fabrics that required a whole experimental process, and I was lucky to have found an expert on this. It’s really nice to find other creatives to work with, get to know them, and learn both ways.

In the experimental phase, we test dozens of different props with the actual fragrance bottle and send out the best ones to the client. This back and forth creates an open space for the client to give feedback and mold the result into something they love. Almost every detail is decided on in advance. To be honest, on the day of shooting there is so little time to be creative with sets, as it’s just everything at once: welcoming the client, setting up the set, creating the perfect light, testing shots, stacking, approval, and on to the next one. Then there’s also video, trying to record these little sets and make them come to life. Imagine doing this without having any movement - it’s challenging. It’s lovely to have gained experience in these still-life worlds, as I now know much sooner what works and what doesn’t.

We often create custom props in various ways. For the Essences collection we worked with someone skilled in 3D to help us visualize and execute ideas.

For two bigger campaigns, we had to mimic the Omani desert - one of the larger experiments we did. Only getting the right consistency and color of the sand was already quite something, not to mention making a mountain and having it look like a real one (for these sizes, real rocks weren’t an option). I loved these two campaigns the most, as intense colors are usually something I personally avoid, and here I could truly put my soul and style into them. The other campaigns are more color explosions.

After shooting, there’s the post-production part, such as following up on retouching, exchanging feedback, tracking video-editing progress, retouching behind-the-scenes imagery, and making sure the client gets all the assets to launch their new campaign.

AI is an interesting topic for me, as I notice more and more people think my work for Amouage is AI-created. Knowing there isn’t a single part of AI present in any of my past work for the brand, I do understand that more and more people will immediately assume things aren’t real, as it’s used more and more and has also improved. People don’t expect brands to put effort and budget into the real deal anymore. At first, I thought I hated the questions that arose, but now I love them, because they only make my work more meaningful - and I take it as a compliment. The fact that it looks like something unreal might mean that it makes an impression. I don’t know - I just enjoy working with my hands and eyes so much, and I believe it will always be so much more interesting when mistakes and imperfections are visible. To me, there’s nothing without experiment.

I consider myself lucky to work on projects for a brand that is so open-minded and truly believes in my creativity and vision. They respect the fact that I’m an artist and won’t ever do something just for money. Everything I do is done with passion. It’s not easy to explain my work process to new clients and make them understand everything that comes with creating these tiny worlds. It’s challenging to feel really understood as an artist, but at the same time it’s something I’ve let go of.

In October 2025 I went to Oman for the first time (shame!) and it was everything I hoped for. Having been there will definitely influence all my future work and I might write an article about this trip later as it was mostly for pleasure with great recommendations.

Please scroll all the way down to the end to see more images and watch the product video of the new Essences campaign, which has launched today here.
I’d also love to receive questions about my process or anything else related to this topic for following posts and clarity. Feel free to drop them in comments or send privately.

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Lately I’m daydreaming a lot about ‘age’ and how amazing it would be to go back to a certain time / phase in life but only with the wisdom I gained now. I’d fantasize about how fun it must be to be young young and alive today and then I realize that they all experience the exact same things, feelings, heartbreaks and insecurities I had back then.

While I did most of my studio work individually, I work with a young young freelance designer from time to time (as one of the things I learned too late is that I don’t have to do everything myself). He asked me for some life (changing) advice lately and I realised oh… I’m at this moment in life where I can actually give advice that really means something.

SO here we GO:

• There is no perfect moment to begin. For nothing in life really. I was never ready for anything I did and they all turned out to be the best decisions in life.

• Talent matters, but consistency builds the career.
  Showing up every day is highly important. Most things come and go but when you’re truly invested you keep going, also when it’s hard. No need to say more here.

• Finding your authenticity / signature style: This is NOT something you get overnight. This actually never crossed my mind as something I needed, but since I have it and people often ask me ‘how’ - I can say that you have to accept that also this is a process of many years (trial and error, style evolving, growing). It’s something completely natural and unforced. Your style already exists, you just need years of work to recognize it.
  

• Honesty & truth: I noticed that a lot of young creatives ‘take-off’ with visual portfolios that indicate +20y of experience. Logo designs presented on digital business card-mockups that have never been actually printed. Sidenote: I used them only to show the client a good representation of their branding ‘in use’ to help them choose, without ever making this public. It must be so hard for people nowadays to choose who they want to work with and what to really expect. Show your clients and network what you are truly proud of even if it’s only 3 small projects at start. I truly believe in realness over wanting to impress to get the job, always. Get the job first, impress after.

• Working from home…. I worked at home for 6 years in total (spread over time, thank god) Sometimes you don’t have much of a choice, financially or geographically. If you have to do it (cause self employed) try 6 months from home and 6 months at co-work or external private place. Just to have a bit of a balance. If you work for a company I think it’s magical to do some days in the office and some at home. When I worked from home I always wanted to get out during the evenings, it’s good when you’re young young but now with a kid especially I need to get out of the house during work hours. Working externally is always a better idea so the home stays a home. In 2026 I will have an external studio but attached to the house - I think this is the best solution for me at the moment.

• Process: Showing the process behind a result is something I always did and it’s still the most important and interesting aspect in everything I do. It’s so beautiful to see where a process can lead to and how creativity lives in the heart of this ‘zone’. I’m showing this less now just because I often lack time but I still document every step and especially my clients are very much part of the progress. It also allows me to pull them in and feel if directions align with expectations and where we should push more, go back or adjust. I miss seeing a lot of process online lately, it’s dying.

• When a job / client gives you an odd feeling before the project even started, follow your intuition and don’t take it. Regardless the money / recognition. When it feels calm in the body, it mostly is right for you.

• Try to discover rather early than late, what kind of a designer you are: A chameleon that can live up to every clients wishes? Or more the artist type who can only follow their own style? I definitely am the last one. I couldn’t even start to come up with a design that doesn’t feel true to myself, as much as I wanted to in the past. I mostly discovered this during intern months or when clients tried to push me in different directions. Eventually this led me to where I am now, almost not designing for anyone anymore as the fire to create my very own things grew too big.

• SAY NO: this must have been my biggest and hardest lesson - Say no if it doesn’t feel good, when the workload is already too big, when you’re really not up for the challenge, when the payment doesn’t match the effort, when the work is something you did in the past but not anymore, when you feel no, say no. Most people understand. Dealing with guilt and people pleasing was one of my struggles until recently and the outcome of completely changing these habits has only been amazing.

• Ask for longer deadlines: Not to be lazy and have more chill time. Short deadlines kill creativity and the ones who really want to work with you will wait. Huge lesson for me.
  

• SAY YES: to clients that are open for experiment and time. IF you say yes to a low budget project, this HAS to be a number 1 rule. I was extremely lucky with some amazing clients who loved my style and let me experiment and I feel these were actually my best results while also enjoying working on them.
  ALSO SAY YES to +- 3 free/almost free work in the beginning of your career. I’m very against free work in general but when you don’t have a portfolio yet, it’s good to prove yourself a bit at first.

• Clients sense confidence: When I was really invested in some creative concepts, I was literally fighting for my life to convince clients and at these moments I talk a lot from the heart while smiling which resulted in coming over very confident about your expertise - resulting in getting the job done exactly as you want it.

• Don’t work for / with friends: I can’t say that I had really bad or horrible experiences doing it, but in the end it never served the friendships and it only left me with stress, no income and a lot of lost hours. You want to help cause you love them, but it’s important to realize how valuable this time is. And when you have amazing friends that don’t ask things for free and actually pay you or give something in return, also don’t do it. I believe it’s always healthier to let friendships be flowy, fun, playful, just anything but work. The risk isn’t worth it. I’m not saying it can’t work. I respect positive stories, but I just don’t advise it.

• DON’T COPY and if you get copied - relax, smile, breathe and let go: Had horrible experiences here and I can honestly say I dealt with it even worse. It’s a dark memory of high stress and lost energy which all blocked my creativity. You’re young and also try to make something of your career so it feels like someone tries to attack you almost. My worst copyright violation (over 48 artworks, website, photos, … were copied) led to legal measurements and in the end I decided not to go through with a financial compensation. This decision thought me so much about compassion and lightness. I would have felt like a horrible person to let a young artist pay so much money and this is where I learned to never lose my calm over something like this, ever again. I still experience it, but my reaction is not there anymore.

• Your career won’t be linear. It will twist, collapse, bloom, and surprise you. Let it be all that.

• Nobody cares: When I would see a work of some years ago, I’d sometimes wish it wasn’t published online. Or when I later on would notice a mistake, I could feel bad about it. Honestly nobody else notices your process of evolving like you do and nobody sees how you could have done better on previous details. It’s a sign of perfection and it’s part of your growth.

• Your best ideas arrive when your life has space. In 2018 I experienced a moment of feeling burnt out as I always threw myself in more than 100 percent at so much at the same time. I took a month off (later learned that this was by far not enough) and discovered everything around the magical universe of slowing down, meditation, yoga, the whole shebang. Now I sense very early on when things are becoming ‘too much’ and I’m better at balancing out jobs, workloads etc. It’s still a learning process at times but I wish I did this better before. You don’t have to make things too heavy, make it light, and enjoy.

• A beautiful one to end with: CELEBRATE every small success. I learned to do this - instead of being over-self-critical I learned to say I’m proud of myself and will find a moment to celebrate all the steps I take as often as I can.

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In March 2024, nearly a year after moving countries, we fell in love with the old house on a corner, surrounded by a modest garden, just perfect in size and with a bonus: a big garage that we later turned into an art studio. A 2 floor house where the upstairs was just a low attic that we later turned into a proper floor where you can actually stand. Just like the corner shape of the garden, the upstairs is surrounded with a spacious terrace. The house was divided in tiny rooms with even tinier windows, a typical Portuguese way of building. It was hard to look through it, but we immediately had a vision.

Most details were in such poor condition that we could hardly reuse or save anything, unfortunately. Everything looked charming in photos and from a distance, but up close the state of every element, even the old tiles, was truly terrible. It made it difficult for us to preserve certain original features and the character of the house, even though we wanted to respect its past and not lose it completely.

I’d say the majority of people we know around here, scared us to death for what was about to come. Positive, naive and spontaneous as we are, we thought we were gonna do things ‘differently’ but I admit, they were right. Leading us to losing almost a year before we could even start the demolition part. Long story short - we learned A LOT: Everything there is to know about building licensing, building budgets, the right people to work with, and a few extra words of Portuguese. These months really took a mental toll on us, but we decided to turn it into something positive, as it gave us extra time to rethink design ideas, which, in the end, made the project feel so pure to me, because I spent so much time going through so many details. Time can also be an advantage… Later that year we finally found the right team, and we could start the demolition at the end of January 2024.

Firstly, I need to mention that the house-bug got me because of my parents, who both still work as architects. My mother is an interior architect, and one of my most vivid childhood memories is the countless days I spent waiting for her in hardware showrooms, counting tools and making a top 3 of favorite door handles out of boredom. I hated the waiting, but it shaped my sense for detail and my specific taste in materials.

Doing a personal project with my mom was a dream, so when she jumped on board, I was beyond happy and grateful. A huge advantage too, as I could switch from idea A to B on a weekly basis, driving her absolutely crazy. If you’re reading this: sorry mama… Here’s a little shout out to Bea Geboers

I’ve always found her amazing at her work, even though our tastes differ from time to time. Her knowledge is priceless, and I often realize we wouldn’t even be close to the finish line if we had done this without her.

Demolition was nuts and went beyond expectations. Along the way we discovered how badly the upper walls were so they basically removed this whole part of the house. The panic during this phase was real and I have to admit there were many days were we just started laughing as we had no idea if this was ever going to become a house again. As soon as the new walls went up, we regained hope and the exciting part could start. I honestly enjoyed every stage of this renovation as I was so curious and wanted to learn all the steps. My love for architecture, interior and design grew profoundly.

The roof building was my favorite part so far as I had a hard time imagining the actual height of the new floor and things started to look more and more real. The first floor has high sloped ceilings compared to downstairs.

A really fun feature of the new house was inspired by our current little rental apartment nearby, where we’ll have lived for three years by the time we move. It has two opposite doors at the entrance, creating a circular flow when they’re open. Alexis would run around like crazy, and it has been incredibly practical for us in so many ways. We’re very lucky with amazing sunlight through the whole house as the walls we broke open created space for it to flow. The house will have only 5 doors (3 bedrooms). Large windows will pull the future green garden inside making it visible from literally every side.

The house is located in a coastal residential area just 35 min south of Lisbon, surrounded by pine forests and close to the beach. Because it sits between dense forest, sand dunes, and the Atlantic, the humidity levels here are extremely high during winter months. Something we had to take very serious since the cost of it in most houses is far from ideal > laundry staying wet, molding, dehumidifiers everywhere, cold, etc. so everything we could do to avoid humidity from staying in, we did. Floor heating, isolation from top to bottom, ventilation, clay, …

In a next post I’ll get more into details of spaces and visual inspirations but for now I can’t show much except for the overall renovation information overload. We’ll have a pool, a bar, a fixed outside table (original feature) and a lot of other fun things to show later. At this stage, the walls upstairs are nearly finished and ready for its windows in Jan. We can slowly start dreaming of moving in somewhere early 2026.

We merely chose for natural materials made in Portugal. The process of finding them, visiting the factories and getting to know the process behind it was absolutely fantastic. For the floors we went for a natural limestone inspired by and old Moroccan farm stone. For bathrooms and kitchen we chose Belgian blue stone manufactured here. Brown aluminum windows and handmade terracotta roof tiles from the Algarve will co-shape the outside.

Trust the process and subscribe to follow more of the next phase. Also, feel free to drop a comment with questions or anything else.

I rewatched this video for about 10 times in the past 24 hours. I grew up in an architect nest and carry an immense appreciation for this creative world. Fascinating how Andra Matin (Jakarta, Indonesia) only uses 2 materials in his personal house. I love how the garden, or almost ‘jungle’ is fully part of the house. My favorite room is the library.

I stayed in a house as open as this one in Ubud, Bali for a couple of nights and the experience really stayed with me. Also the way they own so little ‘distractions’ will forever be something I wanna reach but also can’t… one day! Truly mesmerising

I’ve been exploring the idea of entering Substack for quite a while now, as instagram is giving me strange vibes lately and my TikTok algorithm is pure laugh and 0 brain activity for me. As written above, ‘overflow’ is how I’d describe my brain and since I always loved writing, archiving, creating lists, note wishes, favorites, etc. I decided to give this a try.

Since I’m swimming in the business for 12 years now, I thought I’d be fun to start with a refresh of ‘how I ended up where I currently am.’ Som:)

2009 to 2013 I earned a Master’s in Graphic Design at Sint Lucas Antwerp – Academy of Fine Arts & Design. Everything before this chapter I will skip as I hated school my entire life and only found passion in having a prehistoric black and white Macintosh at home where I discovered the pleasure of digital drawing and later on manipulating visuals with the first versions of photoshop. A universe opened that led me to the next chapter. Right after graduation, on the second of January 2014 (this explains how inpatient I tend to be) I started my company under my personal name ‘Louise Mertens’, 12 years old today.

Both my parents had always been self-employed, and I guess this made me more confident in out-ruling the negative consequences and risks involved with starting from zero. I remember not having more than 500 euros in my bank account and one client project. I always had a strong drive and an optimistic voice in my head.

One project led to another, mostly in branding, covers, print and book-design. Alongside client work I’d create little artworks. Something I did even before studying and this eventually led to clients asking me to create custom, more artistic visual images. I started playing with photography as it gave me more freedom to do what I visioned: However, I’ll never call myself a photographer as I’m less interested in the technical aspects and solely focus on the outcomes. My projects varied a lot, none were identical which I loved and I was lucky to start picking which one I liked over the ones that wouldn't give me any freedom. Even when trying I was never able to create for others what didn’t really feel beautiful to me.

Rewind: right when I started my studio, I applied for an internship at Sagmeister & Walsh in New York. To my greatest disbelief I got accepted and was put on a waiting list for 2 years. It was really hard for me to transform into the role of ‘intern’ after working for myself those years ahead. Looking back, I’m really happy I did it as I learned a lot about life and experienced this city in such a different and special way than I would as a tourist. It awakened a flame in me.

Post-New York, I worked harder than ever before and got international attention which was a dream to me for the only reason that I never felt understood in Belgium. I always felt that clients were afraid to step out of the box, do unexpected things and even pay ‘normal budgets’ (Need to write a whole new post around this topic, remind me) So to finally have more freedom and understanding was very exciting. My artworks were growing and I started selling and doing exhibitions in various cities.

In 2018-2019 I went through a big shift in life on all personal levels. Finding a nice work life balance has never been easy for me as I’m passionate about so much so it caught me somewhere at this stage of my life, leading me to slow down. I failed of course but I did discover new passions and dreams along the way, read a lot of books, saw a lot of podcasts when this was still kind of new and it opened a new creative gate. Oh, I also became a mom (future post).

In 2020, my work caught the attention of the Oman fragrance house ‘Amouage’, where I’m still working for. I create all of their packaging artworks and most of their fragrance campaigns. Together with Renaud Salmon, I figure out ways to visualize his scent universes and bring them to life. Here in Portugal (another post, remind me), we create sets, all made by hand, which we shoot and capture on video. I don’t really like boxes or titles, but to help explain, I evolved towards creative direction as I lead a team of creatives to make all of this happen. I absolutely love the process and experimental phases.

Mid 2024, I started working part-time as a creative director for another company in Phoenix. Not mentioning any names as it’s gonna take some years to fully change the whole look and feel here ;) But I’m learning a lot.

Last but not least, ever since I moved to Portugal I had to come up with new ways of creating my art, as I felt I had grown out of the solely digital phase. Over the past 2,5 years I’ve been painting on canvas on larger formats. Stepping away from the fragility my works once had, into a more rough and unexpected version of myself. Layering has always been a big part of my skills and now painting on top of my digital creations feels like I finally found where I need to be.

Would love to get some input / feedback on what you’d like me to write / post about in the future! Feel free to drop a comment or message. Thank you!
L

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