Product & Design Manager in Loughborough

We are 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 will 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. Take ownership of line management, workflow planning and quality control within the team, freeing up the Creative Director to focus on overall brand direction and business priorities, while you keep delivery on track and all visual output on brand.

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. Set and uphold team ways-of-working: brand guidelines, response times, meeting rhythms, status reporting, file-naming, proofing and sign-off etiquette.
• 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. Ownership of resourcing and capacity planning; allocate work across Product and Design Team; escalate risks early; remove blockers. Catalogue and key launches: own end to end timelines, making sure catalogues and all associated product, marketing and digital deliverables are completed on schedule. Run quick team check-ins and weekly progress reviews, keep a simple tracker of who's doing what and by when, and make sure each project gets the right sign-offs on time.
• 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. Bring proactive ideas for new ranges, formats and collaborations, regularly sharing concepts and suggestions with the Creative Director and wider team. Turn ideas into clear, deliverable product briefs, including mock ups, specifications and reference material that can be used by suppliers and internal teams. Work with the Creative Director to refine concepts through feedback and critique, ensuring that final designs feel cohesive across ranges and seasons. Stay informed on design trends, competitors and customer insights, and use this knowledge to propose fresh, commercially strong product ideas.
• 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. Act as first line brand and quality control for all visual output across Product & Design and other teams (for example brand marketing and web), making sure assets are accurate, on brand and technically correct before they reach the Creative Director. Create and run a clear approval process for visual work, with your brand and quality check first, and Creative Director sign off added where needed.
• Product & Supplier/Artist Coordination: Coordinate supplier interactions (specs, proofs, sampling, colour matching). Support artist sourcing, briefing and relationship management to build a strong portfolio that the company can pull from.
• 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. Communicate changes that affect timelines, budgets, or scope to Operations, Purchasing, Marketing, Warehouse & Fulfilment.
• Data-Led Decision Making: Use sales data, trends and customer feedback to sequence projects and refine ranges for ROI and profit.
• Cross Business: To regularly review set KPI's, prepare regular activity reports and metrics and report directly to the Line Manager. To undertake ad hoc projects as required in order to meet the needs of the business. To contribute to process and systems development, through making suggestions and recommendations to the directors, in order to assist in the growth and success of the Company. To assist colleagues and to support the Company generally, through undertaking additional duties and tasks from time to time as and when required.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Experience:

• Essential: Proven experience leading/traffic-managing creative/product teams in a design/publishing/stationery or related product environment. Strong Adobe familiarity and print preparation literacy to manage quality (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign). Demonstrable planning/project management capability across multiple concurrent deadlines. GCSE Maths and English (or equivalent) Grade C or higher. Competent with Microsoft Office/Google Suite.
• Desirable: Experience in a small, fast-paced business. Knowledge of project management software, in particular design based systems.

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. Greeting Cards remain our main product but over the years we have diversified our offering and now make and sell other stationery and gift items. We have become firmly established within our industry selling to retailers across the world and direct to customers online. We are passionate about what we do and aim to be the leaders in our craft. We source the best artists, suppliers and staff to help us meet these expectations. We continue to be ambitious and want to grow the business further which this role will play an important part in supporting.

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. We love to celebrate art and believe that we have an opportunity to showcase work on our products and platforms. We believe that we are all responsible for our planet and we actively put the environment first.

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. Our core values reflect a strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. We strive to represent, celebrate and embrace diversity. All staff and partners, including suppliers and artists, have a responsibility to enact Ohh Deer's values and priorities, eliminating disparities and ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, language, abilities/disabilities, socioeconomic status, geographic region, or other defining characteristics so that everyone feels welcome and valued. We encourage and welcome applications from all. We are unbiased when offering interviews, appointments and promotions and look at merit and skill. We recognise that experience can be used in place of formal education. All hiring managers are provided with learning resources to help them avoid unconscious bias and decisions are never made by one individual. We use structured interviews which allow us to make informed decisions, avoiding unfair bias.