HH Global Accelerates Retail Display Engineering

Retail environments change quickly. New campaigns, seasonal promotions, and product launches require that displays and supporting structures move from concept to production under tight timelines. The engineering work behind those displays must move just as fast, especially for companies supporting global brands.

HH Global operates at that intersection of design, marketing execution, and manufacturing coordination. Founded in 1991 as a print business, the London-headquartered company has expanded into a global marketing services organization supporting brands including Lego, Amazon, Meta, and Garmin. Today HH Global employs roughly 4,500 people across 61 countries with creative studios and suppliers worldwide.

Engineering teams play a critical role within that environment. Multiple materials, fabrication processes, and supplier networks are often required to create and build retail displays. The design tools used by those teams must support rapid iteration, accurate documentation, and efficient collaboration across global studios and production partners.

Retail display engineering operates under intense time pressure: Campaign launches often involve multiple product variations, rapid client feedback cycles, and simultaneous workstreams across different regions.

Sam Kingston, Design & Engineering Director at HH Global, explains that the tempo of retail work demands tools that support quick turnaround: “Our industry, retail display, is fast-paced. Clients want things yesterday, so we have to turn things around quickly, working on multiple projects at the same time.” He continues, “In my career, I've used other CAD software, which has been four times the price and more complicated than SOLIDWORKS®.”

HH Global engineers must also accommodate diverse fabrication methods. Retail structures may incorporate sheet metal frames, plastic components, molded parts, or vacuum-formed elements, to name only a few, depending on the design requirements and production scale.

In addition to design complexity, the company’s global footprint introduces another operational challenge: Design files must move reliably among engineering studios and suppliers to coordinate work across dozens of locations worldwide.

HH Global engineers rely on SOLIDWORKS Premium as their primary design platform. The software supports the entire design progression, from early concept modeling to production-ready documentation.

Senior Design Engineer Rhys Wyman explains that the workflow often begins with conceptual digital models that quickly enable clients to visualize an idea. “We use SOLIDWORKS from the earliest design stage, creating models that help clients visualize the concept.”

Once concepts are approved, those models evolve into detailed engineering assets that guide production. Wyman notes that configuration capabilities are especially valuable when displays or products require multiple variants. “Some of the things I really like about SOLIDWORKS are the power of its configurations. With configurations, a part can be changed very quickly alongside the assembly model.” This capability also simplifies managing families of related components. “If there's a family of parts or family of units, we can quickly adapt those,” he adds.

Retail displays frequently combine several fabrication approaches. The ability to work across these methods within a single design system is essential for HH Global engineers.

Kingston explains that the platform’s sheet metal functionality supports many of the company’s projects. “We work in sheet material quite often, so the sheet metal functionality in SOLIDWORKS is fantastic.”

The same SOLIDWORKS Design tools also support parts intended for other manufacturing processes. Kingston notes that the workflows extend to plastic components, including sheet plastic, injection molding, and vacuum forming.

In addition to structural components, some projects require more complex surfaces and shapes. Design Engineer Leo Cannatella describes one such example involving a scaled-up version of a familiar toy. “One of the projects I've recently been working on is reproducing the Lego mini figure, which is basically a scaled-up version of the original design.”

Cannatella explains that surface modeling capabilities help recreate the natural forms required for such projects. “Surfaces in SOLIDWORKS gives you the opportunity to create a more organic sort of feel rather than just your standard extrudes.” 

As HH Global expanded internationally, managing design data became increasingly important. The company adopted SOLIDWORKS PDM to organize engineering assets and support collaboration among distributed teams.
For HH Global, the most immediate benefit of the design environment is speed. Engineering teams must often respond to tight deadlines and shifting client requirements. The product supports those rapid development cycles: “SOLIDWORKS gives us speed to market,” Kingston enthuses.
In addition to adapting designs quickly, HH Global engineers must ensure manufacturability among retail display structures that frequently combine different materials and manufacturing approaches. Kingston further states that the breadth of available tools helps teams address these varied requirements. “SOLIDWORKS is versatile. It's got loads of tools that help you work in multiple materials and multiple manufacturing methods.”
With teams operating in dozens of countries, design information must move reliably across the organization. SOLIDWORKS PDM supports that coordination by managing files and enabling design work to move between global studios as needed. Kingston explains that the system has become central to that collaboration.