01Product
Digital products, interfaces and the systems underneath. Concept work, interaction models, and the detail that decides whether something actually ships.
- Apps & web
- Interaction design
- Design systems
A new studio, senior profiles Brussels
For problems that cross product, service, and physical.
VeraCruz is a design studio for organisations whose hardest questions sit between disciplines. We design them as one.
Practice
Three things we do, usually on the same project.
02Service
Customer journeys and the operational flows behind them. This is usually where a good product runs into trouble.
- Service blueprints
- Journey design
- Internal tooling
03Physical
Objects, hardware and the spaces they sit in. The part of the experience people can put their hands on.
- Product design
- Packaging
- Space & retail
How the work goes.
Framing first
Projects rarely come apart during execution. They come apart because the wrong problem got agreed in week one. We spend real time there before anything gets drawn.
Same people throughout
Whoever works out what to build also builds it, so nothing gets lost in a handover between a strategy team and a delivery team.
Small and senior
You get experienced designers in the room rather than a large team with two of them on it.
Long horizons
Our clients plan in years. The work should still hold up by the time they get there.
Quiet by design.
Most of our work sits before launch: early-stage, confidential, not yet ready to be named. We keep our partners' identities private so they can move first.
Sectors we have worked in
- Logistics
- Medical
- Telco
- Energy
- Banking
- and others
Behind the studio.
I’m Raphael Hombroeck. I spent close to twenty years designing across product, service and physical for organisations in logistics, medical, telco, energy and banking before starting VeraCruz. The studio is small and senior on purpose.
Questions
Before you write.
What does a project cost?
To give an order of magnitude: framing or diagnostic work sits between €5,000 and €8,000, a full product and service project between €25,000 and €60,000, and ongoing work between €4,000 and €6,000 a month. These ranges are indicative and exclude VAT. Every project gets its own proposal, built on our reference rate of €1,200 per day.
Who actually does the work?
The people you meet. VeraCruz is a senior studio: strategy and execution sit in the same hands, and nothing is passed to a subcontractor without telling you.
What kinds of projects do you take?
Work where a digital product, a service journey and a physical object have to hold together. That combination is the reason most clients come to us rather than to a specialist in one of the three.
How long does a project take?
A framing engagement takes three to five weeks. An end-to-end project usually runs three to six months, depending on how many decisions sit outside the studio.
Can you work on something confidential or early-stage?
Yes, and most of our work is. We sign your NDA, and we do not publish work without written agreement, which is why parts of the practice are not on this site.
Where are you, and who do you work with?
Brussels. Clients are mostly large organisations in sectors where a mistake is expensive: logistics, energy, medical. We work in English, French and Dutch.
Tell us what you are trying to build.
A few lines about your organisation and what you are working on is enough to start. We reply within two working days.