14 years designing from Mallorca: from hotels and gaming to AI startups

In September 2012 I started working as Cillysen, the studio name behind my work ever since. Fourteen years later I’m still designing from Palma de Mallorca, but the work looks very different: it has gone from hotel graphics and gaming to brands and products for AI startups.

This isn’t a CV. It’s a short walk through each stage, the kind of work it involved, and the principles I take from it. If you’re a designer in Mallorca wondering whether you can build an international career from the island, or a founder wondering who you’d be working with, I hope it helps.

I’m half Spanish, half Danish, born in Tenerife, and I’ve been designing since I was 17. I studied at the Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny de les Illes Balears. Cillysen began in 2012, and it has been the constant through everything that follows: in-house roles, freelance work, a company of my own and, today, my own design agency.

The earliest employed role on my timeline is graphic designer at Cursach Hotels in Palma, from May 2016 to January 2017. I came back from May to July 2017 as graphic designer and community manager.

Hospitality is a good school for a designer. A hotel brand appears everywhere a guest looks: signage, print, social media, ads, the website. The principle: a brand is only as strong as its least careful touchpoint. Consistency across everything people see matters more than any single beautiful piece. Combining design with community management points to a second principle: design and communication are the same job seen from two sides.

In July and August 2017 I worked as an ORM agent at The Strategy Net, ORM meaning online reputation management. Then, from October 2017 to January 2018, I was an in-house designer at La Plaça in Palma.

Two short roles, two useful principles. Reputation work is a reminder that people judge a brand by what others say about it, not only by what it says about itself. That’s why I treat testimonials, reviews and social proof as core parts of a website, not decoration. And in-house design is a lesson in being practical: the work has to be ready when the business needs it, in the formats it actually uses.

From October 2016 to March 2019 I was a graphic designer at Merkur Gaming in Palma. It was the longest role of those years, and it overlapped with most of the others.

Gaming visuals have to carry energy and clarity at the same time. The principle: excitement only works on top of a clear hierarchy. Color, motion and effects can be as bold as you like, as long as people still understand instantly what matters. It’s the same principle I use today in dark crypto dashboards and trading tools, where the key numbers have to stand out from everything around them.

From September 2018 to March 2019 I worked freelance for Hotelbeds in Palma as a video editor and graphic designer. 2018 was also the year I went independent.

Video editing is about one thing above all: timing. What you show first, how long you hold it and when you cut is exactly what motion design, logo animations and launch videos need. The same thinking applies to a website: the order in which people see things is part of the design.

From June 2020 to February 2022 I was the founder of Affinity Dashboards (Calgary, Canada). Founding something changes how a designer sees the work. Every decision costs time or money, and you feel it directly. The principle: design is a business tool first. It’s why I talk about goals, scope and launch dates as much as about visuals.

I’ve worked independently since 2018, and since 2021 I’ve delivered more than 2,000 projects for over 200 founders. Today I run my own design agency with a team of five, working mostly with US startups and tech teams in crypto, SaaS, gaming, fintech, AI and consumer tech.

AI has become a big part of that work. Since September 2025 I’ve been Creative Director at Sculpt, an AI app that brings workout and food logging together. I led the creative vision, from a new brand identity and motion to a reworked user flow and more than 150 UI screens. I also redesigned more than 100 screens for ChromaAI and built a motion system for it. And since July 2026 I’ve been a Product Designer at Anvara, the marketplace for live event sponsorships, working remotely from Mallorca.

Put together, the stages add up to a short list of principles I still work by:

• Consistency beats brilliance. A brand lives across every touchpoint, so the system matters more than the hero piece.
• Proof matters as much as promises. What others say about you is part of your brand.
• Clarity first, then energy. Bold visuals need a clear hierarchy underneath.
• Timing is design. The order and pace in which people see things shape how they feel about them.
• Design serves the business. Good work solves a real problem within real constraints.
• Where you live matters less than how you work. Palma is on Central European time, six hours ahead of New York, so US mornings overlap with my afternoons and work moves on while my clients sleep. A clear process and fast communication do the rest.

If you want to know how a project with me works today, read how I work with US startups from Spain, or browse the case studies.