About me
Michael Carr has 15 years experience as a product designer, creative director and business strategist and won numerous awards for his work, including both Red-Dot and iF awards. He works across industrial design, lifestyle, homewares and fashion, and has been responsible for designing products and collections for a variety of high profile brands including Vivienne Westwood and Braun, where he worked alongside esteemed product designer, Dietrich Lubs. He was also the designer behind the British based brand, Uniform Wares, which he helped launch and grow from foundation through to an internationally acclaimed, global business and later went onto be appointed as CEO.
Work history
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Creative Director & CEOUniform Wares
- London, United KingdomFull Time
- Appointed by the board to the position of CEO, as well as continuing responsibilities as Creative Director.
- Strategy - reviewed all aspects of the business, its previous sales, communication and product positioning, and implemented a new, more commercially sustainable strategy to reduce operational costs, improve sales revenue and extend brand value. Resulting in doubling sales in one month, as well as YOY in its first quarter.
- Restructured the business, built and led a freshly motivated team of new and existing staff, and external partners necessary to grow the business and implement the new 3 year brand, product and commercial strategy.
- Produced a pitch for the improved business model to help secure further investment from additional partners.
- P&L Management - set and managed budgets for each department and appointing a Financial Controller to support reporting and cashflow management.
- Ensured regular reporting to Uniform Wares shareholders and chairing monthly board meetings.
- Brand positioning - identified shifts in the retail environment, customer behaviour and shopping habits, and overhauled the brands approach to sales accordingly to maximise all opportunities.
- Reviewed existing product offering and pricing against performance to fully understand strengths, weaknesses and potential future growth areas, both within our current product categories, as well as new ones.
- Temporarily reduced the current collection to minimise inventory of less successful models and focussed on pushing and developing collections with a proven history.
- Innovation - designed and developed two new, forward thinking yet commercially focussed collections, that suit current market shifts, exploit innovations in sustainable, ’additive manufacturing’ processes and offer future growth areas for the brand. Supported with new, sustainable designs for packaging, displays and other assets.
- Supply Chain & Distribution - designed, developed and set up supply streams for entirely new product categories.
- Restructured the business to allow for the evolving interconnection between direct, e-com and traditional wholesale business models. Exploited the rapidly increased acceptance from customers to purchase online and directly from brands, combined with the continued importance and exposure offered by having physical representation through well aligned, established bricks and mortar retailers, ranging from Barneys, Harvey Nichols, Mr Porter and END Clothing to MoMA, Opumo, Zalando and Amazon.
- Marketing & Communication - rebuilt the website to allow for improved brand experience and shopping process, doubling traffic and conversion within the first month, with a further 23% increase in conversation due to a simplified checkout. Also improved integration with CRM and other platforms, to allow for easier maintenance and a 360 degree customer view.
- Developed a marketing and communications strategy that fully utilises social media channels, mailing lists and collaborations with retail and press partners, to allow for deeper story telling and improved engagement with our customers.
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Creative DirectorUniform Wares
- London, United KingdomFull Time
- Planned and implemented Uniform Wares’ full creative and product strategy.
- Designed all Uniform Wares’ new collections and product output for the coming 3 years, including the most accurate quartz watch collection on the market, using the innovative new Precidrive technology.
- Led all Uniform Wares’ creative output, from physical product, design, development and packaging through to display and print material, brand identity and art direction for digital, marketing campaigns and photography.
- Presented collections at various international events such as fashion weeks in London, Paris and New York, as well as industry trade shows including Baselworld.
- Direct contact for Uniform Wares international retailer and distributor network, across the UK, Europe, USA and Asia, such as Barneys, Liberty’s, Selfridges, Mr Porter and END Clothing. Presented collections, conducted store training, designed exclusives products and POS displays, purchased stock and ensured delivery dates were met.
- Streamlined manufacturing and supply chains to allow for efficiency savings, improved quality control and adherence to changing regulations in Swiss legislation, as well as incorporating innovative new ‘additive manufacturing’ technologies.
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Skills
- Creative Direction
- Product Design
- Brand Strategy
- Business Strategy
- Accessories Design
- Industrial Design
- Production Management
- Product Development
- Design Direction
- Art Direction
Education
Awards
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IF Product Design AwardsiF
iF Product Design Award for Braun BN115, Braun BN10, Braun BN0211 and Braun BN0171G
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Good Design AwardGood Design
Design Award for Braun BN035 and Braun BN0171+ Show more