I am Márton Lente, a designer and creative web developer from Budapest, Hungary.
Photo: Zsolt Kudar, 2023
My interest in brand, design and web development started early, from a biased interest in architecture. I specialized in these fields during my art university years, and started my business 2016. I do, discuss, learn and teach design and web development in my everyday work.
MOME ID Digital Product Designer
and UX Designer
- Budapest
- 2015-2016
I studied user interface and user experience design during my MA studies. The course covered a lot about professional UX research and workflow, as well as UI design. It helped learning the basics, as well as shaping my future studies within the fields.
momeid.mome.hu >Moholy-Nagy University
of Art and Design MA
- Budapest
- 2010-2016
I went to this art university because of my early peripheral-biased interest in architecture. University helped me understand architecture, and develop responsible design thinking. During my MA years I focused on my primary fields of interests, and visited media departments.
mome.hu >Corvin Drawing School
- Budapest
- 2009-2010
I dedicated a year to learn academical drawing in this school, right after my graduation. Corvin helped me develop good study drawing skills, and keen observation for proportion and detail, on a highly managed manner. These skills and mindset is so central in my everyday work.
corvinrajziskola.hu >Deák Téri Evangélikus Gimnázium
- Budapest
- 2007-2009
I studied and graduated at this secondary school, which helped in shaping my interests, and practice learning in general. Its really supportive atmosphere, and kindly-high expectations accelerated my future plans. This school has by far the largest impact on what, and how I do today.
deakteri.hu >Introduction
I am a designer and creative developer. My design and IT interests first met in architecture, primarily in its visual presentation. I have a formal education and MA degree in architecture from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. I always enjoyed representing cultural and design initiatives most, which became my permanent job from 2016. First, I immersed myself in 3D visualization, and then my interest gradually changed towards graphics and digital interface design – and the related development possibilities. Since 2016, I have been doing this under my personal brand, working on tasks independently or in a team. Design and development are equally present in my work.
As well as having a formal education in design and UX/UI, I've ca. eight years of experience in front-end, and multiple years of experience in CMS web development on the LAMP stack. I have extensive knowledge of Bash, CSS, Git, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP and Twig, and am currently experimenting with modern JavaScript frameworks (React). I develop with Grav, Perch, and WordPress CMSs on a daily basis, all of which I use to deliver fully bespoke web experiences. I primarily work on Linux, and I'm comfortable with scripting, and managing web servers or VPSs from the command line.
Background
In the beginnings, school tasks and design contests were good for practicing visual communication, telling complex ideas in meaningful ways. The breakout came 2014, when I established LUMINOSE, a design lamp product with Elizabeth Zimmerer – my former university classmate. My reponsibilites were everything brand and online presence related, and the project enabled me to work on every stage of branding and digital product development, from communication, through design to code. LUMINOSE was the first truly multidisciplinary work that covered many of my interests. It encouraged me to further shift my focus to brand, design and web development, based on the great experience and international exposure we had with the project.
Among my independent works, I especially liked working on the UI/UX redesign and development of the Budapest100 web application for KÉK - Contemporary Architecture Center (from 2022), the design and development of the PI-HUN architects & engineers brand and website (from 2021), and the design of the STUDIO IN-EX Zrt. brand design system, publications and interactive interfaces (from 2018). An important part of my professional activity since 2021 has been the continuous involvement with open-source design tools, among which stands out the creation and development of my own Baseutil CSS web typography framework. I have been involved in teaching since 2017, whenever I have the opportunity.
The projects in which I participated as a creative developer in a team of other designers are also important parts of my story. In these works, my task was UX/UI consulting, and the well-functioning, typographically accurate realization of visual ideas. Among these stand out the development of the KÉK Tudástár (knowledgebase) web application for KÉK - Contemporary Architecture Center (2021, with Barba Kecskés), the development of the MádiLáncos Studio website (2021, with Barba Kecskés), and the programming of LOFFICE web applications (from 2019, with Willem van de Ven).
Responsible business operator
From the beginnings, I strive for maximum transparency, and the most ethical business conduct in my business. I am proud to do my job with legal, licensed software and assets in one hundred percent. Since 2020 I have been preferring to work with free and open-source software in all creative projects, when I have the opportunity.
Volunteer computing
Although I work alone in my business, due to the high hardware requirements of 3D visualization, my hardware equipment is equivalent to an average small business's of 8-10 people. Out of office time, I donate the hardware resources of my devices to the 'Mapping Cancer Markers' cancer research project on the 'IBM World Community Grid' volunteer network. I am currently owning 'Sapphire' badge, with more than thirteen years of computation time given.
Open-source
In 2020, I started relying more on Bash and command-line tools in my development projects and noticed that a huge part of my tools were already open-source. This year, open-source became an important part of my activity, and with a lot of research and experimentation, I slowly rebased almost all my processes to open-source software solutions. I strongly believe that using, and contributing to open-source software is the most liberating and maintainable way to create and work.
In 2021, I started contributing to open-source projects and creating public repositories that help other designers and developers work more efficiently on my GitHub.
I’m the author of Baseutil CSS, an open-source, modern, fully flexible, and utility-centric desktop-first front-end framework designed to help developers in streamlined custom web development. I base all development projects on this to deliver unique designs in code with maximum efficiency.
Personal
I live on the intersection of design and technology. I enjoy monitoring their matching evolvement, being part of it, and feeling their good impact on our daily lives. I am grateful for the interesting times we live in.
As well as my continous focus on architecture- and culture-related initiatives, recently I am very interested in open-source design. I like spending my free time learning on the subject, and contributing to, or creating projects on a voluntary basis. I really welcome projects, that have to do something with the latter!
I am a competitive amateur athlete, and I enjoy taking part in running competitions a couple of times per season, focusing on the 10K distance (in the sub-40-minutes range).
