Experienced design team | Simple Design Works | UK-based product design agency

Meet the Simple Design Works team

As you’d expect from an established and full-service product design agency, our close-knit team of experts are friendly, hard-working, collaborative and curious. Based in the West Midlands, we’re a multi-disciplinary team. Our team will guide you through the full product development process including product feasibility, market research, concept development, 3D CAD, prototyping and manufacturing.

As experts in user-experience, we’re often described as ‘blue sky thinkers with our feet on the ground’. With an eclectic mix of industry backgrounds, we work across all sectors. Together we simply love designing products that create great experiences and make a difference. And we believe that shows in the quality of our work and the long-lasting relationships we have with our clients.

Kristo Shivachev, Managing Director and Founder of Midlands product design agency, Simple Design Works

Kristo Shivachev

Founder

Kristo is our founder and has a fresh perspective and enthusiasm that is infectious. What stands out is his full commitment to an endless pursuit for innovation – to look beyond the obvious and take you somewhere new. As well as his enormous capacity to retain random information which we find is quite baffling!

Ruth Parry, Director of Operations and Marketing at UK product design and development consultancy, Simple Design Works

Ruth Parry

Marketing Director

Ruth is a self-confessed geek who brings compliance and process to the team. She has over 25 years marketing, project and operations management experience and helps with our client’s marketing needs, as well as internal marketing initiatives. Outside of work her life revolves around family, friends and a relentless pursuit in DIY.

Professor David Langley, Director of Medical Sectors in the Simple Design Works product design team

Professor David Langley

Non-Executive Director – Medical Sectors

David originally trained as a neuropharmacologist. His career spans across the NHS, Medical Research Council, Imperial College London, Bristol University, Welsh Government and NIH (USA). We know you’ll love his approachability and pragmatism which he delivers with the most soothing voice ever encountered.

Joe Goldsmith, lead product designer of Midlands product development business, Simple Design Works

Joe Goldsmith

Lead Product Designer

Joe is an experienced designer clocking seven years’ in the FMCG sector. He’s passionate about sustainability, the Circular Economy and outdoor sports. Joe thrives on creative problem solving using a human-centred approach, whilst keeping the design as simple as possible. If he were Superman, his kryptonite would be chocolate as he has no willpower to overcome it.

Charlie Conway, Lead Industrial Designer of product designers Simple Design Works

Charlie Conway

Lead Industrial Designer

Charlie is passionate about balancing great style with substance to elevate our client’s products into another dimension. As a Loughborough University graduate and solid experience with a global floorcare group, Charlie has an accomplished creative skillset. Perfect for the variety of work we do! He thinks he’s really good at FIFA, but Kristo would strongly disagree.

Sean Milward, Project Manager of Midlands product designers, Simple Design Works

Sean Milward

Project Manager

Working in manufacturing, renewables construction and wastewater treatment has given Sean extensive project and technical design management experience to supplement his mechanical engineering degree. Spare time is spent carefully crafting towers only to be destroyed by his toddler intertwined with playing football and ‘friendly’ poker matches.

Nicky Lee - Office Manager of Product Design Company, Simple Design Works

Nicky Lee

Relationship Manager

Nicky knows that it’s the little details that make a difference which is why she’s our super(woman) when it comes to liaising with our clients. She has boundless energy which I’m sure you’ve experienced if you’ve phoned us. We can only fault her on her questionable choice of music – country and cheesy 80s. We can’t deny how happy that makes her though!

James Dimond, Product Design Engineer for UK Midlands product development and design agency, Simple Design Works

James Dimond

Senior Product Design Engineer

James’s enthusiasm for helping to solve creative conundrums is fuelled by his love of great coffee. He has extensive experience in designing beverage closures (that’s bottle tops to you and me) that you’ll find on drinks bottles all over the world. In his free time, you’ll find him outside in a remote field flying drones or inside playing board games.

Jack Whitefoot. Product Design Engineer of design house, Simple Design Works

Jack Whitefoot

Senior Product Design Engineer

Jack is our in-house 3D modelling wizard. He’s relentless when it comes to finding creative design solutions and bringing them to reality, whether prototyping and operating 3D printers or mass manufacturing. Beware if you hang out with him though! Before you know it, you’ll be painting little figurines from Lord of the Rings.

Josh Riley, Junior Product Design Engineer for UK product development and design agency, Simple Design Works

Josh Riley

Junior Product Design Engineer

Josh’s passion for making people’s lives better is evident through the surgical instruments he developed during his placement year, his university projects focussed on human-centred design and his eternal optimism at work. His creativity is incredible – and wacky at times! Although as he holds a black belt in Taekwondo, we daren’t tell him that.

Gus Loydell, Junior Industrial Designer for UK product design consultancy, Simple Design Works

Gus Loydell

Industrial Designer

Gus joins our alumni of Loughborough graduates focusing on industrial design for our clients. He previously worked for a leading floorcare brand on their visual brand language, colour finish and material which fuelled his interest in commercial goods. In his free time he’s interested in shoe design and collecting sneakers.

Yuna Zhang, Junior Industrial Designer in the Worcester office of product design agency, Simple Design Works

Yuna Zhang

Junior Industrial Designer

Yuna is influenced by unconscious design which she uses as her framework for good design. Using this approach, it’s about allowing the design to speak for itself – users can understand how to use it on their own based on their existing behaviours. When she’s not working, you can find her travelling or scaring herself watching horror movies.

Rhi James who manages the Hereford and Worcester offices for product design agency Simple Design Works

Rhi James

Office Manager

If you’ve visited our office, you’ll have met Rhi who greeted you with a smile and a rather good cup of coffee. Rhi is our office ninja making sure that in the background everything is running smoothly. She does this seamlessly through managing our office like a project, but also by feeding the team with homemade bakes to keep them in check.

Tracy Arch, Trade Mark and Design Practitioner at IP company, Barker Brettell

Tracy Arch

Trade Mark Attorney and Partner

Tracy is an experienced and hands-on practitioner at Barker Brettell who practises in all areas of trade mark work. She heads up the firm’s start up group. Her global experience and strategic insight allows her to add significant value to our client’s IP assets, treating each brand and business as if they were her own. She also plays the drums.

Stephen Lowry, UK Trade Attorney at IP business, Barker Brettell

Stephen Lowry

Trade Mark Attorney

Stephen obtains IP protection and enforces the rights he’s helped obtain. He has extensive experience of working on the ‘other side’ having been seconded to the IP teams of a large automotive company, and health and beauty retailer. He loves a challenge having signed up to a half and full marathons (currently he can’t run the length of himself).

Dasha Berezka, accountant at West Midlands product design consultants, Simple Design Works

Dasha Berezka

Accountant

Dasha is the most enthusiastic person we’ve ever met about being an accountant. Always smiling, she removes all financial burden and provides us with insights so that we can continually improve our performance and efficiency. She escapes work by popping on her headphones and trainers, and running around Hereford.

Jamie Gallagher, Brand Consultant for product design company Simple Design Works

Jamie Gallagher

Brand Consultant

Jamie is a brand strategist with 20+ years experience in the boardrooms of diverse businesses. He works with founders, entrepreneurs and management teams to find focus, direction, implement change and define growth strategies. He blurs the lines between creativity and strategy, helping ambitious brands design better futures.

Derren Hotchkiss of the Simple Design Works team in Hereford, West Midlands

Derren Hotchkiss

Bookkeeper

Derren is a numbers guy and looks after our future with sound pension advice. He’s a whizz on spreadsheets and has effortless attention to detail in all he does. Aside from his questionable sense of humour, he’s a sociable chap and loves watching sport, especially football! And preferably over a good pint with his fellow financial friends.

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