Product & Design Manager in Loughborough

We’re looking for a highly organised Product & Design Manager to act as the Creative Director’s right hand and keep our product pipeline running smoothly. You will manage the Product & Design team, plan workloads, and ensure every brief is delivered on time, on brand and to a high standard. You’ll be the person who turns ideas and deadlines into clear plans, keeps projects moving, and isn’t afraid to push for quality and clarity. If you love a creative environment and get a buzz from designing and engineering beautiful products this could be the role for you.

Job Purpose: Lead the day-to-day operations and creative output of the Product and Design team, turning the Creative Director’s vision and briefs into clear, resourced and scheduled plans, and delivering every project on time, on brief and on brand. Design and develop commercially viable products that generate the best return on investment, creating your own product concepts and artwork as well as managing designs from external artists and licences.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leadership & Line Management: Line manage, coach and develop the Product & Design team. Set clear objectives, standards and growth plans; hold regular 1:1s and performance reviews.
• Planning, Traffic & Delivery: Build and maintain a single, transparent master schedule covering all product cycles, customer submissions, catalogue/seasonal milestones, and marketing design needs; publish weekly priorities and critical paths.
• Creative Design and Product Development: Create original designs and product concepts for stationery, gifts and greeting cards that are in line with Ohh Deer’s brand identity and customer expectations.
• Creative & Brand Governance: Translate the Creative Director’s vision into clear briefs, checklists and acceptance criteria for product, marketing and digital work, ensuring all designs meet brand guidelines and retailer or client specifications.
• Product & Supplier / Artist Coordination: Coordinate supplier interactions (specs, proofs, sampling, colour matching).
• Commercial & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Sales/Commercial on submissions and samples for key and national accounts; ensure on-time delivery of assets and presentations.
• Data-Led Decision Making: Use sales data, trends and customer feedback to sequence projects and refine ranges for ROI and profit.
• Cross Business: Regularly review set KPI’s, prepare regular activity reports and metrics and report directly to the Line Manager.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Experience:

• Essential: Proven experience leading/traffic-managing creative/product teams in a design/publishing/stationery or related product environment.
• Desirable: Experience in a small, fast-paced business.

Skills, Abilities and Competencies:

• Essential: Highly organised with excellent attention to detail; able to set pace and hold standards.
• Clear, confident communicator; strong stakeholder and supplier management.
• Problem-solver with sound judgment; comfortable making decisions and escalating appropriately.
• Able to prioritise and manage time effectively; calm under pressure and deadline-driven.
• Flexible, collaborative and supportive of a small business environment; willingness to work outside office hours when required.
• Creative and innovative.

About Us: Founded by Jamie Mitchell and Mark Callaby in 2011, Ohh Deer is an independent, fast-growing start-up company selling greeting cards, stationery and gifts. In 2024, Ohh Deer became a Certified B Corp - this means that we meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

Our Values & Environmental Pledge: Ohh Deer and all of our projects uphold the same values. We believe in inclusivity, acceptance, tolerances, equality and equity. We actively advocate the importance of nurturing positive mental health and have zero-tolerance on any form of discrimination.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusivity: At Ohh Deer, we are deeply committed to embedding good equality and diversity practice into all of our activities to ensure an inclusive, welcoming and inspiring place to work, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.

Equal Opportunity Statement: We are a non-discriminatory employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of Age, Disability, Gender, Race or Religion. We are fully compliant with EEO, D&I, and discrimination laws.