Some observations

All made by some individuals with (professional) perspective and experience – no doubt alongside their own work (and non-work) ups and downs – and I am grateful to them for giving their time and effort to comment . . .

Rob was really invested in the power of design for good and connecting with real people. Rob’s approach was always: ‘How can we make this matter?’

Rob was very motivated in the type of work that he did to help people. [...] In all my time in the design industry, it is very rare to come across people like Rob, someone who got the balance of design knowledge and compassion.

Rob was an extremely talented designer. He had that spark and creative element. What made Rob a particularly attractive proposition is that as well as having exceptional traditional print design skills, Rob was also exceptionally skilled at digital design. Rob also had experience with coding. I tend to find that with younger designers they have good digital skills but not necessarily the design for print skills and many of the graphic designers of Rob’s generation have the design for print skills but not necessarily the digital skills. Rob was able to combine the two with an insightful and incisive design mind-set which made him a highly marketable proposition. Rob was also an innovator and able to challenge perceptions. He had a real creative drive. Rob was also a great problem-solver. Rob was not the type of designer who you would go to with an instruction and ask them to simply execute it. Rob was able to add to the creative process and really explore and interrogate the brief. Rob was then able to take that creative process and focus on his creative and design skills. Some designers are happy to be employed as artworkers rather than creatives. That was not Rob. Rob was a deep and creative thinker on both a professional and a personal level. It was also very clear to me that Rob was extremely passionate about his work.

Rob certainly had the skillset and the abilities to work as a creative head at another organisation or to set-up his own agency and to have made a success of it. Rob was good with people and made strong professional relationships. I have no doubt that Rob could have built up a network of clients as a freelance designer with a view to starting his own agency.

Rob was exceptionally quick and very sharp and instinctive. Rob had a very good working relationship with external agencies and freelancers and got the best out of people. Rob was extremely innovative and a problem solver. Rob was very honest, integral and conscientious.

Rob stood out because of his creativity and his spark. He was extremely intuitive and it set him apart from other designers I had worked with during my career. Rob had this innate ability to create and make a real visual impact as a result of his designs. Rob’s work was of the highest quality. Rob was also extremely reliable.

The design team at the National Trust was a small one. As such I had frequent and regular interaction with Rob. Rob had an extremely approachable nature and a great deal of experience on a wide-range of work on creativity [...] Rob worked on design ideas and fundraising appeals. I recall one specific project relating to a high profile coastal fundraising appeal in Devon.

Rob’s work was also very playful and extremely engaging. I would give Rob a broad idea and he would come up with something really creative as a concept. Rob had the ability to think and respond outside the box. Rob was great at pushing his own boundaries and had a very impressive portfolio of work. Rob was very much an integral part of the burgeoning reputation of the design team at the National Trust.

Rob was something of an unusual proposition in that he was very skilled in both print design and digital design, as well as having knowledge of coding. It is rare for a designer to have a working knowledge of coding, to the extent Rob did. Jobs are usually separated out, so that a Software Engineer or Developer would be responsible for coding, but Rob had that knowledge and understanding himself. [...] He was very proficient and able to pass on his knowledge and train up on certain skills. His technical knowledge was wide ranging and therefore his skills at the Trust were constantly in demand.

Rob was also very inspirational in ideas and design sessions. On larger projects, the team would ideally have an ideas session to discuss the creative direction of a project. Rob was always very dynamic in these sessions, analysing the brief, raising pertinent questions and coming up with ideas.

[...] He was focused on delivering a product that was consistent with the National Trust’s overall ethos, strategy and branding, and keen to really connect with the audience.

Rob was also a very independent worker and extremely thorough with his work even though he also had management responsibilities. Rob would never half finish a piece of work and ask one of his design team to finish it off, he was extremely conscientious and on top of his workload and every detail. Rob got through a tremendous amount of design input which in my experience was somewhat unusual given his leadership role. He did more work than anyone else in the team (in terms of volume of work and spread of projects) and had an overseeing role as well.

[...]

The Head of Creative role [started in November 2016] involved more supervision than hands on design work. However, during Rob’s time as Design Lead he essentially did the Head of Creative role from a supervisory and management perspective, in addition to undertaking the design work which the Head of Creative did not do. The Head of Creative was also invited to more general meetings within the National Trust and involved with design concepts which Rob also did in his capacity as design lead.

I have no doubt that Rob had the abilities and skills to have taken the Head of Creative role had he remained at the National Trust. He was very capable of this and was already taking on these responsibilities in his role as Design Lead. He also had the pressure of executing and delivering a huge amount of design work, so in many ways Rob covered more ground, and more responsibilities than the person who eventually took that role as Head of Creative.

Rob was an exceptionally talented designer. I was not surprised when Rob decided to leave the Trust because he was very passionate about his craft and I could see that after working for one brand for seven or eight years, it would only be natural to want to branch out and try something different. I felt it was possibly the case that Rob also had outgrown aspects of the role, and in many ways gained everything he possibly could out of it. The National Trust work on a yearly, seasonal cycle and therefore the same opportunities for design work came round again and again (for example a Christmas campaign, mother’s day campaign, Easter campaign etc). He was clearly a very capable creative and I understood that for his own personal and professional development he needed to look at new opportunities and have new stimulus and possibilities to explore design solutions.

I was aware that earlier in his career (in his 20s) Rob had set up his own design agency and, therefore, it was not a surprise that Rob decided to go freelance and try his own thing. I know that Rob was looking for a balance between having a regular income and having the opportunity to develop his own work on projects that mattered to him. I always thought that Rob would end up as a freelancer building up his own business. He had very broad skills, a lot of energy and drive, and having been in one company for a while, I could see him branch out to find new and interesting projects that personally appealed to him.

My recollection of Rob is that he was easy to work with, a gentle person, very positive, very diligent, good attention to detail and a good level of work detail and delivery.

[...]

Rob had both print and digital experience. I found in my experience it was quite difficult to find individuals particularly young designers who have good print design skills. Rob certainly did. In view of my dealings with Rob albeit over a limited period of time it was clear that he had a strong skill set and I certainly could have seen him progressing to become a Senior Design Director or to develop his own business.