_e_talks are a little segment where we share the story of a member of our awesome team. We'd like to kick it off with Amsterdam's Web Designer (aka Photoshop Artist) Anja Cronenberg. _

“You guys are weird,” said Anja, when we proposed writing a blog post about her. However, the extremely modest Anja deserves to be put in the spotlight sometimes. She can be described as a Photoshop Artist, which is appropriate since before her days in Photoshop she was a painter. How Anja ended up in Edenspiekermann is a bit of a six degrees of separation story.

After studying painting in College she decided to try her creative hands at that web thing. As a young girl, she arrived on the steps of Total Design in Amsterdam. Edenspiekermann’s own Jack Zwanenburg interviewed Anja and was impressed by her portfolio, humbleness and complete lack of ego in her own skills. Another colleague on the TD web team was Robert Stulle.

Long story short, Robert Stulle made his way to Spiekermann Partners. After six years in Total, Anja ended up at Eden (and Jack came that way later, but we’ll save that story for another time). And in 2009, coincidentally, the three were united again in the same company. Anja was able to dig up a little vintage designer moment for this post – the day Jack, Rob and herself first encountered a webcam. 

But back to Anja’s skills. Besides her tech know-how, I’ve never seen anyone as creative in Photoshop as Anja. If you’re ever stuck for a button, shadow, or a stroke, Anja is your gal. Anja is a ‘real-worlder’. Despite spending eight hours a day looking at a screen, Anja gets her inspiration from everywhere outside of the screen.

“I see things around in life, not only in websites but in magazines and television commercials. Especially posters. When I cycle from the train station to work I love to see the cultural posters, they’re always really nice.”

Anja also has a habit of starting collections. They include items that may appear normal to you and me, except with Anja’s curating they start to feel special. Take her crisp [chip] packets for example, she has collected packets for decades. They currently reside in a huge old trunk, “someday I’ll have the time to go through it and do something with them.” I saw Anja working on Facebook designs for Rabobank and she was creating shapes I never would have thought of. When I asked Anja where she got her inspiration for them, she said believe it or not, one source was her salad utensils. Anja has another (awesome) collection of these and the shapes that are at the end of her handles influenced her Rabobank designs.

Bet you didn't think an Edenspiekermann web design came from salad, right?

Perhaps this is why Anja’s work can be so unique, instead of browsing the web for hours looking only in her peer pool, Anja creates her own palette from off-screen sources. And that, is why Anja is our Photoshop Artist.

(A big thanks to Anja for being such a good sport, this was a rather 'subtle' interview. Or more so she wasn't told it was for a post about her until afterward ;)