About Erlen

I'm a founder, design engineer and creative director, building teams, brand systems, digital experiences and campaigns for global brands. I've found that the best tools do more than make you faster, they expand your imagination of what you can create.

I started in print and illustration, then shifted to digital design. Today, I code, design, animate and ship digital products. I build brands and set the strategy that holds it all together. Somewhere in there, I turned into a template nerd.

I've had a lot of fun doing this for sixteen years, from working at disruptor companies that led cultural movements, to global launches for Nike and campaigns for Burberry, Moncler and McDonald's, to developing interactive formats that others in the industry later adopted. Most of the time, I've set the standard instead of following someone else's.

Most of my earlier successes happened inside publishers like TIME Inc and HYPEBEAST. The job was never only design. It was working between editorial, engineering, sales and leadership, building the systems that drove the business forward.

Now I run By Default, a creative technology studio I co-founded in 2023. I named it By Default because a good starting point should include what many people leave for the end of a project, accessibility, inclusive design strategy, the cultural insight that leads to groundbreaking ideas, and who gets to take part. Making this a default approach opens up opportunities to innovate and integrate for a wider audience.

My entire career has been spent with the mindset of working like a mechanic on a Formula One car, where the real magic happens under the hood. It's the design systems, templates, folder structures and process diagrams, the foundations that give you an unfair advantage. That's the part I'm most proud of building, far more than the high-profile campaigns for brands I've worked on, because it created a growth mindset culture of high-performing teams.