Simon Collings

I studied product and furniture design at De Montfort University, specialising in furniture. First job out was designing office chairs, then product visualisation, then some time out working and travelling through Australia, before coming home and setting up my own workshop designing, making and fitting furniture in the early 2000s. Making things and understanding how they work has always been how I think.

An opportunity came up that meant I spent the next twenty-plus years in product design consultancy, with a particular focus on medical devices. The scale changed, the complexity changed, but the underlying question never did: how is a person actually going to use this?

Throughout all of that, I kept making things for my family, first in a small flat in Streatham with a baby on the way, then in our house in Staines. A folding bed. Fitted cupboards. Cubby holes where there was previously just wasted wall. Each one the same process: understand the space, understand how we actually live in it, design something that fits both.

Collings Made is going back to where it started, with twenty-plus years of product design experience applied to it. Before I pick up a pencil, I want to know how you actually use the space. Who works in the spare room, and for how long. Where the school bags end up. Which cables you'd love never to see again. In medical device development, that kind of user research is built in from day one. In fitted furniture, it rarely is. That's where I come in....

Everything is designed in 3D, measured with precision, and cut to exact tolerances by a CNC panel shop before I add finishing touches and install the final piece. No guesswork, no surprises, and a finish that still looks right ten years from now.