Here at madewithlove, we don’t do design. We’ve been saying that in almost every sales pitch over the years, each time with the feeling we leave an opportunity to help our clients on the table. We could have hired a digital designer to bring the madewithlove vibe to the field of product design but that would not have worked, we believe. At madewithlove, the partners all have a background as developers, not digital designers, and that is exactly why madewithlove shines when it comes to development. We can’t confidently say we could bring the same quality in the field of digital design, at least not without the right partner to help.

Earlier this year we found that partner in Hannes D’Hulster. After working with him for over 5 years, it was clear his values and methodologies closely match madewithlove’s values. So after starting slowly with a few projects under our own umbrella, we are now ready to launch Smooth Sailing as a separate company. 

With Smooth Sailing, we want to focus on durable design. We believe that design is not a phase or a project, but a continuous process in any product company, a process they need to master to become truly user-centred. Just like we do at madewithlove, Smooth Sailing will dive right into the heart of an organisation to make this change happen. So not only will they help out with user research, UX design and product decision making, they’ll share their profound knowledge as well to make teams grow and transform their products and organizations durably. 

Over the past months we talked a lot about values and visions, ideal clients, the right amount of process and the right tools, and we started onboarding the first team members. We think we’re ready now, so today we are launching Smooth Sailing. We’re looking forward to saying “yes” when people ask whether madewithlove can help with the design from now on.