Learning From
Nature’s Processes

By Rik Westerman

Moving to a city and growing physically up, away from the ground designer
Rik feels he has lost his connection with nature.
He wants to re-establish this connection and feel, once again, that he part of the cycle of nature.

“Everything in nature is a process, it’s circular. Nothing is an end product. I wanted my designs to
be like this.
I let the process
lead the way.”

Rik Westerman

STUDENT PROJECT

When I started with The North Face I started looking for the future of exploring, and I wanted to get back to that connection with nature again while keeping the function of The North Face garments in mind and trying to recreate those natural processes. I see it as a continuation of its life cycle. I believe that this is the future of exploring and with that the future of design, and the future of nature.

He wanted to maintain the products’ functionality, ensuring they will be well used. But also create products which are less
likely to break.