“If you don’t plan, you plan to fail,” said Benjamin Franklin. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the numerous client graphic design requests.
From designing event banners, logos, social media posts, and website design visuals, each has a close due date.
A workflow helps you plan the tasks, allowing you to juggle them simultaneously while delivering high-quality work.
Even so, scheduling and task management aren’t most people’s forte.
That’s why enlisting a graphic design agency to help you optimize the laid-out workflow, saves time, and enables you to deliver the best results.
Here are ways agencies help businesses optimize their workflow.
What is a Graphic Design Workflow?
Before diving into the meat of the topic, we need to understand what a graphic design workflow is and what it entails.
Simply put, it’s a roadmap showing you how to get from one point to another. A workflow outlines tasks that must be executed sequentially to achieve a specific objective.
In graphic design, a workflow shows all the necessary steps that must be completed before a graphic design deliverable is presented.
Graphic design workflows differ by project. That’s why a design to publish on the web has a different workflow from one for a printing press.
A Graphic Design Workflow Process
While workflows differ by project, the processes followed are pretty similar. Here’s a summary of the steps:
1. Researching the Project
An agency will help you find out all the information about the project. The premise is to get a more vivid picture of the business, its vision, culture, and competitors.
You also understand how its style has evolved by comparing old designs with what they intend to achieve.
2. Brainstorm
After researching the company, you want to brainstorm design ideas when the information is still fresh.
If the project involves designing a company logo, you could brainstorm inspiring words that evoke specific emotions in your audience.
The words could revolve around the company’s personality, brand message, or spirit. For example, the client wants to evoke emotions of playfulness, relaxation, and comfort.
A graphic designer will use words or visualize concepts that evoke such feelings. If working with a team, you want to set aside time to generate ideas and present them to the rest of the team.
4. Create Sketches
Here, you develop sketches to determine what works and what doesn’t. You could use the following tips:
- Develop different versions of the same image from various angles
- Incorporate colors to make the sketch more presentable
- Find a sketching tool to try out as many ideas as possible
- Reproduce as many sketches then gradually narrow down the selection
5. Liaise with the Client for Feedback
Next, the sketches will be presented to the clients to pique their minds. You may need to make changes, rethink the ideas, or proceed with the design based on their feedback.
If the former, you can polish the design and present a final sketch to the client. Then, hand it over to the client and wait for the finished product.
Every graphic design workflow follows these five steps regardless of the nature of the project. Putting them into practice guides you toward getting the desired finished product.
Ways to Optimize the Workflow
In addition to following the five steps, a design agency will help you optimize the workflow by:
Developing a Schedule
A schedule helps you distribute the workload effectively and deliver the project on time.
A design agency enables you to schedule the tasks using tools like a Google Calendar or the CoSchedule app.
The latter helps you set the timelines, communicate with team members, and establish team member tasks.
Stick to the Schedule
Creating a schedule and following it are two different activities.
A design agency will help you stick to it using tools like weekly and daily planners. They allow you to review your to-do list and schedule high-priority tasks and activities.
Leverage Project Management Tools
Project management tools like Trello and Teamwork have the features you need to schedule and track a project.
With the tools, activities like task management, file storage, time tracking, and reporting are easy to handle.
Working with Plugins or Templates
Working on a design from scratch gives it originality, but templates or plugins help save time.
The beauty of templates is that you can tailor them to the client’s needs and preferences.
Design agencies will leverage templates like Photoshop and InDesign layouts to speed up the design process.
Plugins are also quite handy as they improve a program’s functionality. Most of them are easy to add to design templates and allow designers to explore different design variations.
Prioritizing Tasks
Prioritization is critical to getting the most out of a workflow. A good rule of thumb is to perform smaller tasks first and move on to more complex ones, especially when handling repetitive activities.
Liaising with the Client
A workflow is only as effective as the client’s experience. As such, the design team must liaise with the client consistently to understand their needs and make the necessary changes to keep them happy.
You want to think about their expectations, and preferences when developing a workflow. Keeping them in the loop to understand all such dynamics.
Organizing Files and Folders
Organization plays a significant role in workflow productivity. It allows for seamless linking to creative files and helps the team know where everything is.
A design agency can help you organize files and folders by developing a system for naming, backing up, and storing them.
The professionals may use descriptive names for the files, e.g., a project category, name, or date, and add subfolders or tags to group files.
They’ll also help you set up backup systems like cloud storage, external drives, or online backup services for the files and folders.
Uncluttering the Working Space
Working on multiple projects can leave your space cluttered, even with a workflow.
Uncluttering helps create a clean and functional working space, allowing you to get the most out of a workflow.
The workflow steps also become very clear so you know what to do next.
Conclusion
Are you feeling like your workload is getting the best of you? Consider applying any or all of the tips discussed above. Alternatively, enlist the help of a graphic design agency. We’re one such agency and can help you analyze the workflow to get the most out of it. Having worked on similar projects, you can rest assured that you’re working with the best in the industry. Call us today!
