John Wrightson

As a Design Development Manager I am directly client facing, building and developing relationships with new and existing customers alike. I’ve become the main point of contact for these customers and as such have built a great level of trust with them through various projects. Clients I’ve worked with have ranged from household goods, clothing, electrical, food and bakery, sports and outdoor pursuits through to major telecommunications companies and worldwide brands involved in health, beauty and pharmaceuticals.

My duties in this role have been to take a brief from the client, no matter how thin on the ground the details, and engage with them to fully immerse myself in what they’re trying to achieve. This involves me talking through the project with them, time lines, finishes, materials, look and feel along with graphics and messaging. I then deliver this packaged information into the business to deliver in a feasible concept or direct technical design to deliver into the client along with associated costs which I would manage throughout the project. I will then oversee each project through the various design, estimating, sourcing, purchasing teams, manufacturing stages and be actively involved in signing off first off production in UK and Europe.

Working as part of a small but busy and effective design team, I initially came in to provide support and work up technical drawing packs in Solidworks, gaining approval from clients to then proceed for our in house manufacturing team to produce the designs for one off prototypes or full production runs. Through this role I built on my knowledge of materials and processes involving metal fabrication, joinery, CNC, solid surfacing, plastics and various finishes such as powder coating and laminates.

I was soon keen to implement my conceptual design skills and knowledge which was quickly adopted by the company directors and gave us a great selling point to new, existing and prospective customers gaining us additional pipelines.

Doing this allowed me to be a direct point of contact for customers, which in turn meant I quickly developed key account handling skills and was effective as a project manager. Taking projects from cradle to grave I was involved with all manufacturing departments, external suppliers, shop floor staff, warehousing and logistics to ensure key dates were hit and budgets and incurred costs were managed accordingly.

Sole 3D Designer within the Leeds creative studio. Working on a wide variety of projects for major high street retailers and international brands. Designing all elements of POS equipment working along side fantastic 2D graphic and brand designers along with various other departments within the company.

From graduating my Product Design Degree became a Concept Designer for a market leading Retail Design & Manufacturer with a global reputation. As part of a small Design team with a large turnover of work and meeting strict deadlines I was involved in all stages of various design projects. My main duties were the design of new products and retrofit equipment including initial concepts & sketch work, 3D modelling and visuals, product development which supports engineering and maintains design integrity. Other design involvement included setting up graphic literature, customer presentation work and web site design. Alongside these duties I also liased with and supported various other internal departments, contact suppliers and maintain relationships with clients.