After graduating in 1992, Hugo Timmermans immediately started designing and producing furniture on a small scale. He won the Dutch Prize for Young Designers with a chair made as a graduation project, followed by the Prize for Best Dutch Furniture Design the year after with the 'Orange Box Cupboard'-series.

He started the design brand OVAL® with Job Smeets in 1995, and realized different national and international projects. In 1997 Hugo Timmermans went solo, and started the production company Optic Product Development and the brand Optic®. He exhibited two furniture- and product collections at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, combining forces with other self-initiating design bureaus under the name Dutch Individuals.

Hugo Timmermans has always believed in designing through knowledge of materials and production processes, because he thinks this is what gives a designer his creative freedom. In doing so he tries to bridge the gap between the industry and the consumer. In 2001 Customer was born, the multi-platform collaboration between Willem van der Sluis and Hugo Timmermans, and active in the design and realization of products, projects and one-offs.