Meet the ASC Team - Robert Duckworth

We’re thinking about design this month, so let’s meet one of our team members with a passion for design. Introducing Robert Duckworth! Our newest Sales Estimator; helping our clients work out exactly what they need from their packaging, and how much they’ll need to invest to make it a reality.

Roberts Experience

We don’t just let anyone loose in the office; each member of the ASC team is considered a valuable asset. Rob is a man of many talents; luckily, he can channel them in a way that takes our custom boxes to the next level!

Previous Work

Robert held a design role at a previous company for a number ofyears; he racked up his hours with various CAD (computer aided design) tools and interpreting client briefs, tostack on top of his 2D drawing skills. Unfortunately, the culture just wasn’t the right fit for him, which led to Robert taking a break from the hyper corporate world. Staying within the creative sector, Robert moved into acting – initially with panto but also taking on screen roles for various adverts. He’s worked with the likes of football star Harry Rednapp.
Take your health & safety up a league | BrightHR - YouTube

BrightHR | Introducing #TheNewHR starring Harry Redknapp - YouTube

Not to mention some time with Samuel L Jackson during the production of Marvels “Secret Invasion”.
Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion | Official Trailer | Disney+ - YouTube

Outside of acting, Rob also had a stint as a lock keeper and outdoor shop assistant.

Outside of Work

Given his employment history, it will come as no shock to find out Robert has a love for adventure.He’s been a long-time cyclist and nature/landscape photographer; being featured in magazines such as Yorkshire Life



& The YorkshireDalesman. Not to mention completing challenges such as the  Everesting Challenge in a very competitive 14 hours. As well as “Chase the Sun” in which Robert was required to cycle 200 miles across the north of England in a single day!

It’s sad to say that Robert found himself in a terrible position, after receiving a serious head injury in a road traffic accident, it was uncertain if he‘d even come out alive. Mr Duckworth lost 6 pints of blood at the scene and had to be put into a medically induced coma for a whole month. Narrowly avoiding brain surgery and suffering countless broken bones. He still had to have multiple interventions following his initial discharge, including a rare embolization operation – meaning a coil of platinum had to be placed inside his skull, to reinforce a damaged artery. Considering he was forced to start from scratch with his mobility and speech, we can safely say that Robert is a warrior! You can hear more about his recovery and continued adventures on his personal blog Life and Times of a Yorkshire Lada website he designed and built himself. His efforts aren’t purely focused on his personal recovery. Robert has made a conscious effort to raise money for others who may face similar hardships.
The time I was featured on Look North - YouTube

Favourite Things Robert's Designed

We asked Robert about some of his favourite design projects and here were his top 3:

1. A university project in which he had to design furniture for someone moving into an unfurnished home. Consider it a stroke of foreshadowing; Robert designed removal boxes that were able to be reformed into small furniture like stools and tables.

2. During his time as a coma patient, Robert woke to discover he had had velcro mittens attached to his hands; to reduce the risk of removing important wires and equipment by accident. It turns out that these mittens are quite cheaply made and cause a lot of waste, due to the material being impossible to sanitise after use. He took it upon himself to design some Teflon mittens with a loop fastening, making them more environmentally friendly and able to save the hospitals money at the same time.

 3. Beer bottle packaging that was able to securely contain the product with cardboard, as opposed to hazardous plastic rings, while keeping the use of material to a minimum. This was achieved by employing a number of holes to createa bowling ball type grip – eliminating the need for a protruding handle. 

Roberts Day to Day Responsibilities

As an estimator, Robert is responsible for accurately projecting the costs of a clients request, the materials required to complete the job, the time ASC will have to dedicate to the brief and how many staff hours will be spent on production, in order for us to provide an accurate quote to the client. We like to offer high quality packaging for a fair price, so Rob helps us offer you the best rate possible! He also keeps track of all the small details associated with your packaging. Things like FEFCO style, corrugate strength, ink colours and measurements to keep your product snug, are all a part of Robs wheelhouse. It can also be his responsibility to make sure design samples make their way to you, so you have the opportunity to make any tweaks before giving approval for batch production. If you make Rob aware of a concern you have with your design, then he can offer a cost-efficient solution that suits you. Estimators typically report to Sales Managers so, in this instance, Robert reports to our Commercial Manager James.

Roberts Recommended Resources for Design

We’re more than happy to provide guidance on how to design custom packaging to fit your products and your brand, but sometimes you just want to do it yourself. Here’s a few of Robs recommended resources for design!

ArtiosCAD

ArtiosCAD is a software produced by Esko, a graphic arts company based in Belgium, that is specifically promoted as “the world’s most popular structural design software for packaging”. It boasts a library of pre-existing styles for you to start off with and customise, features that calculate measurements based off what you build and lets you simulate different folds and attachments to suit your product without having to make physical samples.

Sketchup

SketchUp is considered more of a beginner design tool. It doesn’t require a great base of knowledge to produce a design, it has easy collaboration features that let you share with your team (especially handy for remote workers)and they even have a free option for the small business side hustler who just needs one box for now. The main trade off here is that it isn’t packaging focused, so you need to have at least a partial vision of the shape you’re imagining to start off.

Adobe Substance 3D

Adobe is a popular name in the digital creative space – maybe you already have one of these softwares in your Adobe Cloud Package and you haven’t even touched it? Illustrator is a longstanding graphic design tool with a plethora of online tutorials available for free. This makes it a safe middle market option for the less experienced designer with big ideas. However, in january 2023, Adobe released a software called Substance 3D that is specifically targeted at those of us wanting to visualise packaging and consumer goods. It shares many features with both ArtiosCAD and SketchUP like being able to design packaging with different, styles, strengths, textures, colours etc but it benefits from a unique integration with Adobes other tools. For example, their asset library allows you to draw from the media uploaded to Adobe Stock – already a very popular feature among Photoshop users.

It’s clear to see that Robert Duckworth is a man with a lot of sides to him, kind of like a box! If you’d like to get an even closer look at what he’s able to offer, then call up our sales team at 0800 0731 126 or fill out our contact form here. You could end up working with any one of our amazing team members, but you’re more than welcome to ask for Robert specifically.