Product Designer

**Job Description - Product Designer**

Salary 45K-55K depending on experience

About Maker&Son:
Maker&Son is one of the worlds fastest growing luxury furniture businesses. We design and make the world's most comfortable chairs, sofas and beds, entirely from natural materials.

We are an ambitious family run business based in the UK and we are growing fast - as such, we need a highly motivated creative individual to join our fabulous product development team. We are based in Balcombe [40 mins from London by train, 20 minutes from Brighton] and we will need you to be based in our offices 5 days a week.

Overview

Were looking for a Product Designer. You will play an important role in identifying consumer trends and illustrating and designing products for presentation to the product development team to create innovative products that are aligned to the overall Maker&Son vision. In your role, you will have the opportunity to present your ideas and concepts to the wider team for possible development. Maker&Son are pioneers of sustainably sourced, design-led, Luxury Homeware and this is your chance to be involved in the development of our homeware categories which include têxtiles, furniture, lighting, home accessories, and many more as we enter our next stage of growth. You will have strong skills in design and be able to demonstrate that you can see things through from an idea to completion. This is a very fast paced and creative environment, where you will need excellent organisational and communication skills as well as a can do attitude. You have a strong sense of ownership and the ability to work collaboratively in a team.

Key Objectives:

- Have the ability to create unique and sustainable design concepts across a wide variety of Homeware and Furniture categories
- Illustrate complex design solutions by creating 2D CADs, 3D renders, prototypes and mock-ups for evaluation
- Be the key person in the design of our products from concept to design, scheduling, prototyping, testing and in creating technical specifications to ensure launch schedules are met
- Communicating consumer trends to the wider team.
- Use data collected from research, user testing and market analysis to create truly user centric designs.
- Looking at ways to improve the current product range and working with our manufacturers to implement these improvements.
- Develop and maintain detailed design documentation.
- Ensure that all products we are working on are consistent with Maker&Son brand values and our business strategy.
- Think innovatively at all stages of the creative, design and development process: research on a regular basis to be at the forefront of innovation and shifts in the Luxury Homeware market, as well as parallel and influential industries for inspiration and opportunities in product, materials, fabric, colour and technologies.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

- IT Literate with Advance levels of Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign, Solidworks/Rhino, Vector Works, Microsoft Office, Powerpoint, Excel is a must
- Drive and a willingness to learn.
- Strong organisational product design skills
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills
- An active interest and knowledge in design across the homeware categories
- Highly proficient drawing skills
- Flexible approach and ability to handle all aspects of the design process
- Strong attention to detail
- Ability to work to strict deadlines
- A design degree background preferable
- A genuine passion for sustainable design
- A willingness to work independently, with an interest in developing your own skills and knowledge
- A positive can do attitude and excellent work ethic

Desirable:

- Previous experience working for a luxury retail brand
- Educated to degree or similar qualification in Design, Interior Design, Architecture
- Minimum 3 years experience in a similar role and/or business
**Our Brand Values**

Creating and establishing a successful new luxury brand in established markets on a global scale requires many elements to come together harmoniously. To list the detail of all of these here would take considerable time, but some of the main elements to achieve what we have so far are as follows:
1. Authenticity - we love what we do, we do what we say we do, we are what we say we are.

2. Awareness - we are aware of the needs of our customers, we enjoy the continual process of understanding them and we go out of our way to ensure that we show them that we have this understanding.

3. Respectfulness - we are respectful of the gift that we have been given to create this brand in the first place. We are respectful of and cherish the people that work with us as employees and suppliers. We are respectful and very grateful for the customers that engage with us. We are deeply respectful of the environment and all the resources we use to create the products that we do. We respect that customers have many choices and that we constantly need to be delivering to the best of o