Who is
Smitten?
Louise-Lotte is a Dutch designer living in Heusden (Destelbergen) .
• She has lived in Ghent and surroundings since 2006.
• Born and raised in Breda, The Netherlands.
• Left at the age of 18yrs to be a nanny with a Dutch family in Baltimore, Maryland (USA). She helped raise 2 kids for a year.
• Started her studies Fashion design in Amsterdam
• After her first year she went back to the USA to study graphic design.
• She graduated with her Bachelors degree in Visual and Performing Arts (with an emphasis on Graphic Design) at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1996.
• She returned to Europe and started her first job, in Brussels, Belgium at BIC Graphic Europe January 1997. Working in Illustrator all day long.
• Her first job in webdesign in 1998 at Thieme Multimedia in Delft (NL). She learned design and code her first websites in HTML, CSS, Javascript and even some Flash.
I lived in Amsterdam (2000-2005) and designed
• Branded corporate content heavy websites (VBAT Amsterdam)
• Government websites (Corps3optwee The Hague)
• Pixel perfect pages/sections for large international websites (Agency.com Amsterdam)
• Large Content websites for Sara Lee in Microsoft CMS (Framfab Amsterdam)
• Socially engaging websites for fast moving consumer goods such as Heineken Music, Bacardi, Twix) (Qi Amsterdam)
I moved to Ghent (2006) and designed
• cross-media campaigns Duval Guillaume (E). One of the largest independent Advertising agencies, with branches in Antwerp, Brussels and New York. (We worked for clients in all 3 locations Bazooka Bubble Gum, Rizla cigarette papers, I30 Hyundai cars, and Pampers diapers).
• At Boondoggle (2007-2011) we created a complete communicationplan for the city of Mechelen (on-offline) and designed activation platforms for Heineken Music Ireland (Dublin), Rabobank (Amsterdam) and many other memoriable campaigns for the National Lottery (Belgium).
• In 2011 I wanted to work in Ghent (after my 2 sons were born) and starting working at Netlash which changed names to B-Seen and later Wijs. (Currently known as Duke & Grace).
I started my own company Smitten (2015)
(first phase from home)
• I grew into a UX/UI profile and started accepting projects where both skills were on demand.
• Agfa Graphics (international website with Amplexor)
(workhops, prioritize & map content, wireframes, visual components)
• HUBO (with Cronos group)
(UX phase of the check-out/shopping cart and product tiles)
• Belfius (with Amplexor)
(Intranet UX/UI phase of the news tiles layout templates)
• Bike to Work (with Mischa Verheijden)
(Illustrations, posters, social media banners for the yearly BiketoWork campaigns,
"The BiketoWork Summer Challenge" and "The Winter Trophy")
• Isopearls (with Mischa Verheijden)
(a client in the renovation and construction business,
redesign of all their offline communication for trade fairs)
(second phase in-house)
• ING (from end of 2015)
- I created a styleguide for the ING Belgium retail, based on the new design of the website.
(make the design pixel perfect and describe components in Confluence for development)
• BNP Paribas Fortis (via Wemanity june 2016)
- Notification Center (UX concept/wireframe phase of the design, the prototypes for user tests and implemented results in the designs).
- IMP app an app for experienced stock marketeers
• Moneyou (Boondoggle) (from March 2017 part of the CX team)
- We build a component libary from the new logo guidelines using atomic design principles, for the open domain NL, DE, DE, and A websites
- Agile Loans team (UX designer in the team) I designed wireframes, UI components for the libraryn and participated in User tests and integrated conclusions/iterations into the MVP.
• Axa insurances (April-December 2018 part of UX team on 2 projects)
- E-Pensions (May-July 2018)
a salesflow in a co-creation design thinking manner. We co-created prototypes, using the AXA Paris guidelines, did 2 series of user-tests (FR&NL). We delivered the MVP to management and was received with great enthousiasm.
- My AXA Pro (Oct-Dec 2018) Public Sector tool for Claims
We created user-test scripts, planned the interviews, did observation tests, analysed, did the presentation of findings to stakeholders.
Designed recommendation-proposals in wireframes in updated AXA atomic components. Presented and discussed feasibility with the stakeholders from My Axa Pro Agile team and Marketing.
• Gutzandglory (May 2019-May 2021)
I worked at Gutzandglory as the only UX/UI designer in a team of design-branding and advertising specialists. I worked on small one-pager sites, campaign sites, newly developed brands' e-shops as well as larger e-commerce-shops as well as international large content sites (in different areas, like pet pharmacy, in the building and construction, as well as banking and broker sites). Always part of a larger communication plan.
• Vavato (May 2021-September 2021)
We worked on optimising and digitalizing the flow of the online auction house both for the sellers as for the internal logistics team, and simultaneously relieving the ladies of admin. Through user tests we found the obstacles people suffered every day, and were able to design a flow that would make peoples workload so much lighter. Both sellers and logistics people were happy to work with the new "goods handover". With the flow, sellers were able to see how many people bought, if they had paid and from what city/country they came, and how to easily check out the goods they came to pick up. We AB-tested emails and made deep interviews and designed new emails based on the information we received. The components that were already existing we used for the build, and others we designed to fit the purpose.
Smitten VOF UX/UI design by Louise-Lotte Brekelmans, Mussenstraat 48, 9070 Belgium. T +32 474 490016 E hello@iamsmitten.be