Jenny Watling — Product Design

Product Design Leader — Soft Goods & Hard Goods

About me

I'm a physical product design leader with a decade spent bridging technical performance and commercial growth. I built Mous's soft goods category from zero, covering bags, luggage, technical accessories — into a multi-million-pound line with high-profile partnerships, and I'm now expanding into hard goods.

At a glance:

Current role: Senior Design Lead @ Mous, after 7+ years in the tech accessory industry
Specialism: Strategic design direction for building new categories from zero
Beyond the work: Founder of hi_craft, a leather goods brand blending modern design thinking with traditional leathercrafting

Capabilities

Strategic

Built a category from zero to £12.8M+ revenue
Product strategy
Range architecture
Consumer research

Technical

Soft & hard goods design
Solidworks
Adobe Creative Suite
Tech pack creation
Keyshot

Leadership

Grown a team from mid-weight to lead
High-profile partnership relationships (Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1)
Lead with transparency — team knows the why, not just the brief

Design Leadership Philosophy

Design, to me, is simply a responsibility to the person using the product. It's about showing we genuinely understand where their friction points are and taking the care to make their daily life a bit easier.

Deadlines vs. high standards

Fast turnarounds are the norm, but never an excuse to ship sub-par work. I prioritise the durability, function, brand quality - a fast product that breaks is wasteful. Currently, I'm building tighter insight loops into the studio process to validate decisions with real users, earlier.

Transparent, adaptive leadership

I manage a team of three, from mid-weight to lead, and flex my involvement to project complexity and individual strengths. I lead with open communication, explaining the why, so the team learns the commercial rationale, not just the output.

Pragmatic design governance

Extending a brand into new categories needs flexibility, I prefer to focus on a consistent approach rather than overall look. We anchor everything in four pillars — durability, functionality, style, protection — then let those translate naturally into new materials and formats.

Building Mous Soft Goods

The Challenge

Mous is a tech accessories brand known for premium protection within phone cases. Bags represented a significant growth opportunity, but entering the category meant competing with established players while maintaining brand credibility and coherence.

My Role

Led the end-to-end strategy and execution for the new category
Shaped the design direction, built and mentored the soft goods team
Created the product pipeline and briefs; directed design and development from concept to production

Key Results

£12.8M+ in revenue since launch in 2023
30+ SKUs launched across 3 ranges
Partnered with Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 on team bags and luggage
Average 4.8-star customer rating from 1,000+ reviews

Strategic Decisions

Defined core soft goods design pillars from customer insights: protection, organisation, style
Phased product pipeline: Flagship > Foundation > Expansion
Created a distinct soft goods aesthetic aligned with Mous's brand

Case Study 1: Extreme Commuter Backpack

Extreme Commuter Backpack open interior view

Business context

A hero product to establish credibility in bags and signal Mous's tech-protection, refined-utility values.

My role

End-to-end: product definition, creative direction, technical development, production handover.

Process

Sketches → refinement and feature development → 2 directions → full tech packs → sent for sampling.

Key Decisions

Chose water resistance and a professional/tactical look over a brighter-lining alternative. Refined fit and structure across 6 sampling rounds.

Leadership

Set the cost and construction standards, made the calls under pressure during the first production run, then built the fix into our standard process.

Outcome

10,500 units sold, £1.7M revenue in 3.5 years. Established the category and became the foundation for the range that followed.

Case Study 1: Extreme Commuter Backpack

Extreme Commuter Backpack worn on Tower Bridge, London

One of the key elements of the Mous brand is protection — through R&D we worked out what that was in relation to a backpack. This impacted the final design of the backpack, using highly water-resistant materials, and making it a more structured shape.

Moulded EVA back panel maximises airflow and comfort.

Premium hardware and security features - tackling a big customer concern.

Proprietary Airofoam® technology integrated for maximum laptop protection.

Range Building: Foundation & Expansion

Building on the flagship launch, added 3 new variants based on customer feedback from post-purchase surveys and reviews, then a further 3 products addressing accessible price, travel and sport-use occasions.

Extreme Commuter Bags

R&D learning reused from the flagship to reach incremental market segments.

Day Backpack

Accessibly priced version retaining the flagship's easy-access feature and key protective elements.

Optimal Active Backpack

Hybrid work/sport solution with an antimicrobial shoe pocket.

Optimal Travel Backpack

Carry-on compliant, modular accessory system built from customer-journey insight and pain points.

Case Study 2: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Bag

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team bag in the paddock

Team bag hardware detail with Mercedes-AMG Petronas branding

Business context

Landed a partnership with Mercedes F1 to produce a team bag that can handle the rigours of life on the road for the team.

My role

End-to-end: product definition, creative direction, technical development, production oversight.

Process

Understanding the needs of the Mercedes team, using our current bags as a baseline. Rounds of sampling with user trials and feedback.

Key Decisions

How is this product the same or different to the Extreme Commuter? I focused on lightweighting, upgrading pockets and swapping less reliable hardware.

Leadership

Design lead across two organisations, translating Mercedes' needs internally, and presenting our rationale back to them, balancing their asks against what was technically and commercially sound.

Outcome

Our best selling backpack, overtaking other SKUs, with sell-out within 2 weeks of launch. Continued team use and excellent feedback.

Expanding Capabilities: Luggage

Mercedes-AMG Petronas wheeled duffel luggage

Man pulling the luggage through a city street

Blending Hard and Soft Goods

As the bag category matured, it grew into luggage — the Mercedes-AMG Petronas wheeled duffel. My soft goods background carried across directly: user friction, durability standards, supplier management. It paired soft goods construction with a hard-goods skeleton (ABS honeycomb, fibreglass, steel wire), balancing complex fabric manufacturing against fast-changing hard-goods engineering.

My role:

Led overall design direction and owned development of the soft goods construction, including multiple supplier trips to align the fabric shell with the internal hard-goods skeleton and hardware.

Where I want to take this next

Systemising Customer insight

Building a repeatable process for turning customer data into go/no-go decisions on new ranges — insight I want further upstream, shaping investment, not just validating after launch.

Design guidelines

Codifying current product lines into a formal design system, so new categories build on what exists rather than starting from scratch, a foundation I want to set early wherever I go next.

Team

Currently leading an industrial design lead, a senior soft goods designer and a mid-weight soft goods designer. I shape resourcing around where the roadmap is heading, a habit I'd carry into a bigger remit.

Personal Project: hi_craft

hi_craft leather goods on a cutting mat with tools

What is it?

My personal brand blending heritage materials — like leather and wax canvas — with modern features and design styling.

Why?

It keeps me in-touch with my creative skills and hands-on with physically putting together a product. I design, sketch, create patterns, prototype and make everything myself at home.

Goals

I love the process of developing the design style and branding of hi_craft. Next, I'm aiming to sell some smaller products in small quantities online - learning more about ecommerce in the process.

Thank you.

For any further information or conversations, email me:

jenny.watling@gmail.com +44 07495 938793