About Us
Intuitive Designs provides Web Consultation Services and it’s located in Bellingham, WA, USA, ran by husband and wife team Naomi Niles and Koldo Barroso. We are committed to making your online presence effective and successful. From us, you can expect reliable consultation, more than 20 years of combined professional experience in arts and graphics, fast turnaround, and solid work.
As a small studio, we believe it is important to give 100% to each project we work on. For that reason, we only work on a small number of projects each year that we feel passionate about being a part of.
In our workshop, we get inspired every day from different sources, many other rather than web design, including photography, movies, art, and even fashion design and music. We are more interested in finding the right way of expression and style for a project rather than copying other people’s work or following trends. For us, finding the right vehicle to make a design work in a practical way in terms of success is the most important factor for every project.
If you are interested in our Web Consultation Services please feel free to get in touch with us and tell us a little bit about your project.
Koldo Barroso
I was born in Madrid, Spain, and I started working in a professional design studio in 1987. I started Intuitive Designs with Naomi in 2003 after several years of freelance work in different activities, such as illustration, painting, craftmanship and sculpting.
I had my first art classes and learned classic painting techniques at 6, although at the time I was just mostly interested the cartoon world from Walt Disney, Hannah Barbera and Warner Bros. I later developed a passion in comics, such as Marvel, Asterix, and Spanish Bruguera. It was during my teenage years when I discovered the amazing world of illustrators such as Brian Froud, Roger Dean and Patrick Woodroffe. It was then that I realized there was a marvelous way to put my own stories, ideas, images and visions in books and I decided to become an illustrator.
Because I started working in professional graphic design in the late 80’s, I consider myself a designer from the “old school” who adapted to the new times and technologies. I am one of these people who dropped tools such as Rotring pens, photolitographs and Letraset sheets to enter the digital world with amazement. I am very happy to have learned how to work with my hands first before getting a computer. Today, I still use some of the old techniques in some circumstances though and I always try to apply to the new digital possibilities all that I learned in the old days.
Apart from the illustration work provided in Intuitive Designs, I work in other illustration projects rather than commercial and design, such as editorial, children’s books, as well as doing sculptures. Some of my latest personal projects are a Children’s illustration book on monsters, a book that compiles a series of illustrations of songs and lyrics by different artists (including Jon Anderson, Robert Wyatt, Pete Sinfield, Björk, Roger Hodgson and Peter Gabriel) and sleeve design for album covers.
In my spare time, I enjoy playing music and of course while we are working we listen to all kinds of music. To be able to work with my partner in a quiet environment and to listen to music at the same time is something I always wanted to be able to do in my life and I am very grateful that I can do it.
We love to have long walks in the woods and mountains where we live. That’s where we discuss most of our projects and get the best ideas for our work. We also enjoy spending time at home, cooking and preparing “themed” dinners with a good wine and good music that go well together.
Personally, I am very interested in the personal awareness of the spiritual world today and the power of will and positive thinking. I believe love it’s the ultimately force that makes the world go round and I think everything is possible if we learn to be in tune with it. This is the kind of positive energy we always try to put in our work.
Koldo Gets Inspired By
- Retro ads fron vintage magazines.
- Antique black & white portraits.
- iTunes shuffle.
- Thinking positively.
- Playing harp on rainy evenings.
- Old European cities at night.
- Disneykins & Dunkin figurines.
- Basque cuisine and Spanish red wines.
Koldo Would Like To
- Finish his new illustration book.
- Meet brilliant people.
- Visit Disneyland.
- Learn to dance the waltz.
- See the Northern lights.
- Have tea with Brian & Wendy Froud.
- Learn to play the ukulele.
- Find Nevereverland.
Naomi Niles
I was born in Colorado, US, and started Intuitive Designs with Koldo in early 2003. Ever since, apart from the design aspects of the work I have concentrated in trying to achieve standards-compliant xhtml/css, working with various content management systems, and consultation services.
My first contact with design was when I took a multimedia class in high school. This turned me on to design in general, but I didn’t realize that people could make a living that way and I decided to study psychology as a career. A few years later, having encouragement from Koldo, I did my first web designs and I realized that I had discovered my true calling. Something about the mixture of technical and creative aspects in web design fascinates me. Hence, my passion was born!
Since that time, you can find me reading and researching with gusto to further my skills and knowledge in web design and development. I’m especially interested in information architecture, project management, consulting, and marketing and love to be a part of every step of each project we take on from beginning to end.
Besides the actual technical aspects of our work, I enjoy greatly working with people who are positive and passionate about their businesses and life in general. Building solid relationships with like-minded people motivates me. I also firmly believe that the lines between work and personal life are less solid than they used to be. In this respect, both Koldo and I share many personal values and goals that we apply to our work and things we learn from our work that we apply to our personal lives.
One of the most interesting things I have learned during my experience as a web consultant is about not wasting precious resources. This is a philosophy that we try to apply in our daily living as well as in our business and each and every project. When it comes to making a proposal for a new project, we always try to find the best solution so it gives the best result for the client. We don’t like to see our clients wasting their money, energy and illusion on methods that aren’t worthwhile and don’t demonstrate good results for the project.
Besides web design, my hobbies include taking long walks with my husband, hiking, reading classical literature, playing the flute, watching classic movies, reading just about every web design, fashion, and productivity blog I can get my hands on, and shoes. I’ve had a fascination with shoes my whole life and have a tumblog dedicated to unusual and interesting shoe photos I find around the net. I also hope one day to learn how to make and design shoes myself.
View my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn. Naomi Gets Inspired By
- Productivity, marketing, & design blogs.
- Fashion from the 20’s & 30’s.
- Very large classic books.
- Derren Brown & Cesar Millan.
- Sunday mornings with The Beatles.
- Newspaper Design.
- Frugal and sustainable living.
- Amelie Poulain.
Naomi Would Like To
- Visit the flagship Fluevog store in Vancouver.
- Grow a secret garden.
- Go to An Event Apart in Seattle.
- Visit my roots in Cornwalls and Scotland.
- Have a pet hedgehog and pig.
- See The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.
- Learn to play the bagpipe.
What else are we up to?
Charity Support
We believe that our work can be like a little grain of sand that can help to make this world a better place. We are especially interested in working with non-religious and non-political organizations related with:
- Sustainable living and ecology.
- Helping children in need.
- Human rights.
- Animal welfare.
Our Side Projects
Apart from our design studio, we are involved in other side projects on the Internet that we run in our spare time, related to illustration, fashion, and music. They are all designed and developed by us:
Work With Us
We are always on the lookout for good people to work and collaborate with who share our same philosophy in work.
If you are a developer, copywriter, or seo specialist who is passionate, motivated, a self-starter, a good communicator, friendly, and who has an interest in learning new things and growing as a professional, please feel free to get in touch with us and tell us a little bit about yourself.