CATAWIKI

The Situation

Catawiki is Europe's leading curated online marketplace for special objects. Auctions across 80+ countries, dozens of categories, millions of monthly visitors. When I joined, three things were broken.

The visual identity couldn't scale. What worked for one market didn't translate cleanly to others. There was no system holding it together, just a collection of assets being adapted differently by different teams. Brand consistency across markets was uneven at best.

There was also a disconnect between how the product felt and how the brand communicated. The platform experience and the brand expression weren't speaking the same language. For a marketplace that operates in dozens of countries simultaneously, that's not a cosmetic problem. It's a commercial one.

The Approach

I led the development of the design system as an evolution of Catawiki's new brand identity. Not a revolution. The foundation was there. What was missing was the infrastructure to make it work consistently at scale.

We built a flexible system using colour-coded object categories that translated seamlessly from print to digital. The window shape became the most recognisable element of the visual identity, an invitation to step inside the platform and discover something. We paired sans serif and serif typography to reflect two sides of the brand: knowledge and passion on one hand, openness and trustworthiness on the other.

The photography direction put Catawiki's in-house experts front and centre, positioning them as the guardians of their categories. That decision gave the brand a human face and reinforced the trust that a curated marketplace depends on.

For the TVC brand campaign, I worked as the bridge between Catawiki and Achtung Amsterdam. My role was ensuring the campaign stayed true to the brand we were building internally. The concept brought objects to life in 3D stories, taking viewers into each object's history before returning to the platform. We produced the campaign for three markets: France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The Impact

The design system gave Catawiki a consistent visual language that could scale across 80+ markets without breaking. Before it existed, every market was interpreting the brand differently. After, there was a shared system that teams could apply without guessing.

Brand consistency improved measurably across markets and touchpoints. The TVC campaign launched successfully in France, Italy, and the Netherlands.