Stephane Meermans smiling

About
Stéphane Meermans

Current activities

Currently Stéphane is working as the CEO of the consulting services company Smith And Williams, he is also the Executive Manager and UX expert at TRIPTYK

Stéphane also give courses to help people acquire skills in web development, design and UX/Ui.

Background

Married and father of four at , Stéphane started his love for the graphic design when he was a kid. At the begining of the web at home he saw the potential of this communication media and wanted to learn fine arts in high school to have a good background.

Stéphane Meermans father of four marvelous kids

He then took all the courses possible to learn computers and graphic design softwares. And it is quite naturally that he went to study computer graphic design and web in higher school Saint Luc, in Brussels.

This is where he met, at a Macromedia Flash conference, his longtime partner and friend Gilles Bertrand, owner of TRIPTYK.

Stéphane Meermans and his partner/friend Gilles Bertrand

Previous work activities

When he graduated Stéphane almost immediately started a freelance activity in addition to his job as an Flashmaster/graphic designer/game devloppper in a marketing communication agency.

He worked in this company for major accounts such as Nokia, L'Oréal, Proximus, Kellogg's, etc. And as freelancer too, he has worked for clients like Unilever, Nestlé, etc.

He then took another opportunity in a direct marketing agency Evolutionland where he was head of production, the hinge between the different production poles.

For once a company that worked really like a family.

Stéphane Meermans on a boat in Amsterdam, a teambuilding with Evolutionland

And that's where he perfected his knowledge in the different aspects of production, from art direction to backend, including frontend and web integration.

This is also where he learned his communication skills from company boss Eric Joiris, who gave him the opportunity to handle the company's customers as if they were his own.

At this point Stéphane realized that to satisfy end users, the best way was to put yourself in their shoes. At that time the term UX, although it had already existed for a long time, was not used at all for this kind of approach.

For Stéphane it was a revelation, as if one had never seen this possibility before, we absolutely had to stop trying to sell a product to a customer.

One had to provide a solution to the customer problems.

Stéphane decided to create his own company and provide this solution to everyone.

His first client was his former boss who had seen the potential of this concept.

Skills

In all modesty, it is not possible to list everything that Stéphane has done in his + years career, but here are most of the languages and softwares which he is used to work with:

Figma
Figma
Sketch
Sketch
Git Scrum
Git Scrum
Miro
Miro
HTML
html
CSS
css
JavaScript
JavaScript
Ember Js
ember js
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
vs code
Sublime Text
sublime text
Affnity Photo
Photo
Affinity Designer
Designer
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator
Adobe XD
XD
Adobe Indesign
Indesign
Adobe Premiere
Premiere
Adobe After Effects
After Effects
3D Studio Max
3Ds Max
Blender
Blender
Cinema 4D
Cinema 4D
Ableton Live
Ableton
Fl Studio
Fl Studio
Logic Pro
Logic Pro
Microsoft Outlook
Outlook
Microsoft Word
Word
Microsoft Excel
Excel
Microsoft Powerpoint
Powerpoint