Merlin: The Code Boutique Turning Motion Into Digital Magic
Merlin is a Code Boutique from Amsterdam, founded in 2018 to prove what’s possible. We help ambitious brands and creative agencies maximize their digital potential by working motion, tech and design as one craft, across the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, the US and France.
What runs through everything we do is an extreme drive to succeed, and a belief that digital campaigns and experiences can yield more results than they often do.
The Journey
We settled in the Lowlands in 2018. Mees, Servin and Emiel studied together at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, in the same courses, and were also friends outside of that. A few times a year they would get together to play Mario Party and trade stories, dreams and visions. Something clicked when they started working as a team, each bringing a different variant of the same craft and a shared urge to prove what’s possible.
The first client was the Maritime Museum of Amsterdam. A run of smaller projects followed, and then a large agency started pulling us in to help shape 3D web experiences for conferences. Covid had just hit and the conference world was rebuilding itself online, so the timing was good. We built a 3D open days platform for Avans, one of the larger Dutch universities of applied sciences. Then projects for Bol.com, the dominant e-commerce platform in the Netherlands and Belgium. Then Eurovision Village, the live fan space tied to the Eurovision Song Contest, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Eurovision was the moment the portfolio started opening doors on its own. After that we went direct to agencies and design studios, and started making things with SKKY by Kim Kardashian and Jay Sammons, Inter Milan, Nike, Dior, Heineken, Coca-Cola and others we still feel lucky to have worked with.
A while later, we met an expert coach whose tech boutique had recently integrated with Monks. He came on as our coach and advisor, and that chapter is when Merlin grew up. Roles got defined, management rhythms came in, OKR cycles started running, and our sales structure took shape. Around the same time we rebranded with Nolie.co, and the Merlin that exists today began to take shape.
The name carries two things at once. A figure of myth and magic, and the collective that now goes by it. Where one ends and the other begins is a line we have never drawn too sharply. We like the wonder that sits in that gap.
Our roles have settled into what each of us does best. Mees leads new business, strategy and creative development. Emiel leads operations, producing and creative development. Servin leads finance, legal and creative development. Creative development sits across all three, because everyone still builds.
Showcase
Eurovision Village
The live fan platform for the Eurovision Song Contest, built for the city of Rotterdam as host. For two weeks each year, Eurovision is one of the loudest cultural moments in Europe, and Eurovision Village is where fans gather online around the contest.
The brief came with three things to solve at once. The platform had to carry hundreds of thousands of visitors without buckling. The livestream had to sit inside the experience itself rather than exist somewhere offsite. And content had to update in real time as the contest unfolded, because nothing about Eurovision sits still. We built for all three from the start.
Accessibility was the hardest piece. Because the project was commissioned by a city, WCAG compliance was held to a governmental level, inside the main experience itself. There was no separate alternative version sitting next to the real site. Every visitor, including people using assistive technology, worked with the same thing. We were among the first to pull that off in an experience of this weight.
The platform was picked up by the national news during the event. For us, this was the moment the portfolio started opening doors on its own. Agencies and design studios we had only watched from outside started getting in touch, and the shape of the studio changed shortly after.
Dior
A campaign site for Dior’s End-of-Year moment, built to carry the story online and move attention toward the digital storefront.
The brief was to create a luxury feeling on any device a visitor arrived with. A brand like Dior runs on consistency, and the web is where that becomes hardest, because a flagship phone and a three-year-old one are asked to carry the same experience. We built performance scaling that adapts to the device itself, so the experience stays consistent across everything.
From there, the site did its job. The creative work carried the mood, and the build made sure people moved through the story and into the digital storefront where the End-of-Year campaign lived. For us, Dior was part of the stretch where Merlin started going direct to brands and the biggest agencies. Having a house like this on the portfolio shifted the kind of conversations we were having.
Pendragon
The companion site for one of the year’s biggest medieval TV productions. The kind of experience that used to come standard with a show of this scale, and rarely does anymore.
The job was to pull fans into the world of the show and hold them there long enough to sign up. Between episodes is where shows either keep people or lose them, and for a production this ambitious there was plenty of universe to explore. A custom interactive 3D map became the backbone of the site. Bespoke graphics extended the world of the show onto the web in a form that rewarded time spent rather than just displayed itself.
10% of visitors clicked through to the subscription page, and the project went on to win a Webby. Made with our friends at Format-3, whose creative direction set the tone we built into.
113
This one sits close to our hearts. 113 is the Dutch suicide prevention hotline, and we took the project on pro bono, together with N=5.
The campaign tells the stories of teenagers whose lives were lost to suicide, in a form that asks visitors to slow down and spend time with them. Most of the work went into tone. The stories had to carry weight without tipping into spectacle, and the families who shared them needed to feel their child was held with care. Everything else on the site was shaped around that.
Average time on the page landed at over four minutes. For a campaign site, where most visits end in seconds, that is the difference between someone glancing at the work and actually sitting with it. Time enough to take the stories in, and to start a conversation afterward at home, at school, or anywhere someone might need one. That’s what this was made for.
Culture & Team
Merlin has proven itself. A Webby, Awwwards recognition, and performance metrics that outperform industry benchmarks. Seven years in, the work holds up. What that means for the people who join us is that you arrive somewhere with real ground beneath its feet, and a lot of room still ahead. We are ready for growth, and ready for the brands that dare to grow with us.
You get real responsibilities early if you want them, and you can grow with us. We move fast, try things, and protect the drive in the room.
The closest analogy for how we operate is a professional sports team. We look after each other, and we push each other when we know there is more in the tank. We are proud of what we make and proud of how we work. One of our core values is do good; get better. That sentence does a lot for us.
A couple of rituals we hold to:
- On Tuesdays, a round of how everyone is feeling, work or otherwise, you’re free to share whatever is on your mind; no judgment.
- Once a month, Creative Friday, a full day where anyone can experiment or prototype whatever they want.
- Every now and again, we host a party; we love a good party.
Underneath it all is what we call Merlin’s method. A way of working we have sharpened across every project we have shipped, and it has been proven to move the numbers that matter. For our client Histor, 15% of visitors who went through the flow signed up for the newsletter; for Heineken Silver in Singapore, 10% of visitors uploaded an image to be turned into a ghost, delivering the exposure Heineken needed for the launch; on Pendragon, 10% of visitors clicked through to the subscription page; and on our 113 campaign, average time on page landed at 4 minutes and 6 seconds.
Where we are pointing Merlin now is toward work that moves people and drives decisions for the brands we make it with. Craft becomes most interesting when it lifts the emotional and commercial side of a brand along with it.
If we sound like your cup of tea, feel free to come get one at our Amsterdam headquarters.