As a product design consultancy, we at Play Design are human-focused 3-dimensional problem solvers.

From styling that’s absolutely spot-on for the context, to the unseen ingenious mechanical solutions or interface that make a product intuitive or pleasurable to use, we’re highly attuned to the emotional and psychological response people have towards products in their environment.

This combination of styling, build quality and ultimate usability is what helps make the products we design market leaders.

We believe product design at its best is invention-based and that, as flattering as design awards are, product sales are actually a truer measure of a creation's worth.

Adding value to our clients' products is always our foremost goal - whether by eliminating manufacturing overhead, reducing time to market, or establishing advantaged market positions through the development of strategically significant intellectual property.

As an experienced design consultancy you might imagine that we have designed quite an array of products and have worked with all kind of teams. We have.

Sometimes we develop products fully with our in-house team, or as an adjunct group to an internal design team. Sometimes we develop full turnkey products through manufacturing, or design a challenging portion of the product, or come up with the next big idea for our clients.

But when it comes down to it, we do what we love. We design products and we do it well.

Research and Innovation

Ergonomics and Styling

Engineering and CAD

Model Making and Prototyping

Manufacture Liaison

Before starting any new project we spend time listening to our clients' product aspirations, and taking on board their market knowledge and experience.

Successful product development requires the balancing of many important and often competing factors. New product ideas are evaluated and tested thoroughly, with market research, group brainstorming, concept generation and experimentation. This will often involve client workshops to ensure the client's knowledge of their own market is not disregarded.

The focus on Innovation is central to our entire product development process. Our research aims to start projects off on the right foot, by promoting fresh perspectives, creative thinking, and thorough evaluation. Common assumptions and conventional thinking are continually challenged in order to discover inventive solutions that really make a difference.

Ergonomics concerns the relationship between a product, the user, and the environment.

It is not enough for a product just to look good, it should also be a joy to use. This requires a careful analysis of how it will be used, and the trialling of different solutions.

Successful ergonomics allow the user to intuitively use the product. It's as much about giving physical and visual feedback to the user - to enable them to enjoy a product without thinking about it - as it is about whether it's comfortabe or not.

Of course, aesthetics can influence the success or failure of a product, no matter what functional advantages it has. Through research, sketching, foam modelling and computer surfacing, we maximise a product's appeal to its target market, and deliver styling that's appropriate to the product's lifespan.

Our engineering expertise is at the heart of everything we do. It's no good dreaming up product ideas that can't be made. Our engineers are involved at the very beginning of the development process to ensure innovative solutions are found to make the impossible, possible.

We like to get our hands dirty. Our practical approach means physical and virtual models are introduced early into the design process, allowing us to quickly evaluate, refine and test. This generates robust design solutions, reduces timelines, and saves our clients money.

SolidWorks and Alias CAD models are used to quickly communicate a design to all concerned, including variations in colour and graphics. Animations go one step further, demonstrating features and usage to management, marketing and focus groups.

Modelmaking and Prototyping are critical parts of the product development process, and they can have a number of benefits.

Within the concept and styling development stage of a project, we would almost always suggest a life-size visual model that you, as the client, can pick up and handle, or walk around. We will often start with a quickly built model in 3D CAD, but there's no substitute for a physical model to really get a feel for a product.

As the project progresses, functional aspects of the design become the focus for modelmaking and prototyping, with concept-proving models that may demonstrate moving parts that you interact with when using the product, or internal mechanisms and engineering solutions that are critical to the inner workings.

Finally, we'll commission pre-production prototypes that as closely as possible replicate production materials and techniques to check and finalise the design prior to tooling.

Unlike many of our competitors, you'll see very few computer visualisations in our portfolio. For a lot of design companies, that's where their interest and involvement ends in a project.

As well as engineering your product, we can help you find suitable manufacturing facilties, either in the UK or in the Far East. We'll also act as your quality control, making sure tolerances are adhered to, the end results are spot on and that the product performs exactly how we intended it to.