Joshua schoonen

Trust, love, and playfulness are the three foundations of both my life and my work as a vormgever, a Dutch word that means "shapegiver". These values shape my world and allow me to create as freely as possible.

Trust isn’t just about being honest and working with people I believe in, it’s also about having a sense of radical hope. This kind of hope helps us to work with a long-term vision, to stay flexible, and to be able to adapt when things change. It gives us the confidence that no matter what happens, we’ll figure it out and keep building for the next generations.

Playfulness is just as important. It’s about looking at the world with a child like curiosity, and always questioning how things are done. This means being critical of systems while still staying open to possibilities and new ideas.

At the core of both trust and playfulness is love. Love feeds my sense of radical hope and my playful way of working. But I don’t see love as just a feeling, it’s something you do. It’s acting from love that drives everything else, helping me trust, explore, and keep shaping the world around me.