If it’s a pilot using the steps needed to shut off an engine that is failing or a surgeon who follows steps to save the life of a patient, following an established procedure makes experts more effective in their work.
It’s the same for the design industry. efficient workflows and processes improve productivity and efficiency for designers. But there are many design teams that do not director has a well-designed workflow for graphic design. Moving to simpler workflows that maximize production along with collaboration between other divisions could be a major benefit to an organization.
This article will take a look at five key lessons for successful design workflows, accompanied by examples from real Canva customers.
Table of Contents
- One source of truth that guides the design procedure
- Templates ensure consistency and effectiveness
- Brainstorming using real-time, interactive graphic design tools results in better ideas
- A roadmap that makes the progress of tasks clear
- Design feedback that is high quality improves the performance of the team
- Conclusion Stay with this workflow process design procedure
1. One source of truth is the basis for your design process
The first step in creating the first step to create an effective flow of design is to create an official document in which all the necessary guidelines, resources and other information is stored. Some design teams call it a “design wiki” some might refer to it a design manual. The idea is that it serves as a central point for all members of your team, or for any other stakeholders who are that are part of your design projects.
The resources you should be sure to include as “one true source”:
- Your company’s design principles
- The branding guide with design specifications
- A kit for your brand which contains all of the assets of your brand
- A section for projects that includes links to specific designs folders or documents
For design teams that use Canva for Teams, this resource is useful in creating more seamless relationships between designers and marketing. If each team has access an information hub, they are able quickly and easily update pertinent information when needed. For instance when a marketing team member looks at the design brief and discovers that one of the key elements of the marketing strategy is not present, they can take action immediately. This will not only save unnecessary design work for the designer but the elimination of team silos will enhance the communication between designers and marketers.
Create an ” Table of Contents” style resource that lists all of the documents, design resources including templates, a link to the brand’s kit as well as other pertinent details. Share the link with everyone on your team, as also other teams who are involved in the project. It is a workable document that can be modified and adjusted in real-time.
An flowchart, or flow diagram is a fantastic method of giving your team a the big picture of design-related projects. The design workflow will detail the steps in the design process starting from the first idea through the finished product. This transparency of the process of the team helps reduce confusion between teams.
2. Templates are designed to be consistent and efficient.
Team templates that are branded can help your team and you ensure consistency and efficiency while reducing mistakes and improving productivity. Templates that are designed to be quick and easy to adjust cater to both your design and management/task-oriented needs. Based on the kind of design task you’re involved in the team you work with may require several designs templates.
Set the stage for your project using project management workflow templates
If you’re not already doing so created templates, you can create templates for typical administrative and project management workflows. For instance, whenever you’ve got new design projects to tackle begin with your design short template. The template can be filled in with space for the principal goal of your design as well as the market you want to target as well as graphic design specifications as well as links to your brand kit, as well as hyperlinks to folders that contain other resources. You might also want to include specific examples of what to do and nots. To provide more clarity and structure Many teams also write an outline of the project or Business Requirements Document along with your sketch brief and ensure that the objectives, timelines, and resources are clear at the beginning. To help further define the dependencies and estimates of time the use of it is recommended to use a graph of the PERT can be utilized to supplement the brief. Also, you should include an outline of the timeline within your project scope that lets your team set a timeframe for the project and the dates for delivery.
Other types of projects and workflows that might require templates are:
- Research/Mood boards (e.g., Mood board templates)
- Project management (e.g., Gantt chart template)
- Plan for launch or outline (e.g., Design process templates, Process map)
- Tracking performance (e.g., Objectives Key Activities, Objectives as well as Results (OKRs) Template, Roadmaps)
HubSpot maintains its brand’s consistency through visual designs.
Pre-designed visual designs save the designers’ time but they will also be able to guarantee consistency across content and campaign types. HubSpot employs templates, in conjunction with its design guidelines to create an image consistent for its brand, however, its designers still create new designs using these templates.
Prior to implementing Canva, HubSpot’s design team faced issues with brand consistency. When they made the decision to create their design platform in Canva they noticed significant improvement in efficiency, consistency as well as productivity. HubSpot made use of Canva’s branding Kit feature, and put their materials in folders. The centralized brand asset system helped to avoid design bottlenecks and slowdowns.
“There’s such rapid growth occurring, the only method for design teams to stay ahead is to build an structures around design. Canva is the perfect solution without the need to develop something for us.” Jennifer Proud, the HubSpot’s Head of Global Marketing Design
Then, HubSpot streamlined and organized the 600+ templates which it was then able to share with all its marketing personnel. These templates are utilized to create social media, email and webinars, landing pages, webinars and much other. Being a global organization, HubSpot uses Canva to manage a design workflow using localized templates. This allows teams across the globe to become more independent and eliminate constant demands for content targeted to different target groups.
The company also makes use of the role designation feature in Canva as well as templates locking options to avoid unwanted modifications. The company has also created an Slack channel to help with problems and requests for templates.
Ideally, your templates should provide a wide range of needs and types of content. However, the bigger your company and the more variation in your projects you experience and the more likely it is that templates and modifications are required. Set up a system to record the needs and requests for templates as they change and as you try out processes that your designers can use. The creation of an organization chart could assist in breaking the roles of your team and assignments to manage your workflow.
3. The ability to brainstorm with real-time, collaborative graphic design tools helps to come up with more creative ideas
If you discuss ideas together with your group for a design task, a live-streamed collaboration tool lets you sketch rough sketches, outline, or mood boards to help you develop your ideas for design. Based on the nature of your project, you may make mockups of your final product or design, or make the blueprint ( wireframe) of the web design, or bigger project. If all parties have an access point to the exact design, even in the event that it undergoes different versions, you can move forward faster without having to communicate back and forth.
Hero Creative keeps its arsenal of tools easy by using Canva
Collaboration that is real-time becomes more important as more teams collaborate via remote. If you are using more than one tool at a time it becomes difficult to keep up with everything. can be a lot more difficult than working on tasks on your own.
For instance, Canva customer Hero Creative was based on collaboration in person. If your coworker is right near you, it’s quick to request files or other data. However, once Hero Creative transitioned to remote work, collaboration was more difficult. One reason was that the company was using numerous tools that did not allow teams to collaborate in real-time.
When Hero Creative shifted over to Canva, Hero Creative no required multiple meetings, nor shared various versions of their ideas. It was instead, Canva allowed for real-time design, co-creation, and feedback.
“To say that Canva is revolutionary is an understatement. It has changed the way we communicate and share our thoughts and ideas to our clients and with other users. It’s an instrument and vehicle for a robust storytelling and has transformed our ability to accelerate projects at our end and efficiently.” Mark Davis the President and Creative Director of Hero Creative
A mindmap technique helps keep thoughts organized
Mind maps are an illustration of a design that can help you and your group organize your thoughts during brainstorming sessions. Through quick connections between concepts, you will make a visual map of thoughts. Make your mind a creative map using different tools for design which make it simple for everyone in the group to understand and build upon this mindmap.
For instance, with the mind map templates of Canva customers can use color codes to express their thoughts and construct concept clusters a mind map of design for products. When creating your mind map, pick uniform shapes, styles and colors to help you organize your thoughts. Keep in mind that this document should be a document that can be used as a reference. Team members can modify or modify the design of the mind map and the contents to come up with new ideas. The commenting and tagging function of Canva allows users to make notes and comments directly on the mind map the design.
Keep in mind that your mind map will give your team a broad image of your idea and not a precise plan. Take it as a fun exercise and make use of the tool to help keep brainstorming in order.
4. A plan for progress makes the tasks visible
Team leaders in the design process who monitor and communicate team performance tend to stay organized and productive throughout the design workflow. The transparency of internal processes has been shown to improve resiliency to setbacks, and increase the sharing of knowledge and resources throughout an company. A successful design process incorporates an integrated plan that each participant in the team shares each time they accomplish the tasks.
The roadmap you create can be structured by deadlines for delivery or individual task status or a mixture of both, and other important progress indicators. If, for instance, you opt to track your progress based on the status of your task, you can use the categories of “in progress,”” “waiting for approval,”” as well as “delivered.” After that you can ask every team member to progress their work along the road map by taking each step. They could tag you, and add notes to keep on their progress and also keep everybody updated on the progress of their work.
In Canva When team members hit milestones in their project they can connect directly to the appropriate design or the most recent version of the file. They can then use the comments and tagging function to contact their leader or the next team member for feedback.
5. Feedback on design quality helps the team work better
Regular feedback from a quality designer can help you and your team enhance processes and designs. The process of feedback you receive may vary depending on the particulars that you are working on. For instance the process of approving your design could include multiple stakeholders who need to keep their eyes on your design at various points throughout the process.
However, if you’re halfway in a project and want feedback on your deliverable from a supervisor or prepared to present your final product to a customer The process must be similar to a procedure. It’s like this:
- What is your purpose and the items that will be reviewed.
- Discuss the design and rationale that you used to make your design decisions.
- Determine if the person reviewing is in need of clarification.
- Include the issues you’d like to see the reviewer address in their comments.
- Check the feedback.
- Ask for clarifications.
- Next steps to make revisions Based on feedback.
Designer preparation is essential for ensuring quality feedback.
As can be seen in the above steps the process of design feedback isn’t merely an open-ended call for feedback. Prior to asking for feedback, be sure to follow these steps to ensure that you don’t receive feedback that can steer you in the wrong direction.
The project’s goals should be communicated The objective or the problem you’re solving with your design must be clearly stated. If you don’t have clarity, the feedback you receive from the design team could not point you in the right direction.
Limit the options If you’re looking for feedback regarding the dimensions or color of a particular element Don’t give infinite choices. Instead, limit your options to a minimum of two or three options and then include these choices when you submit your feedback. The choice easier for the person providing feedback as well as your team.
Request precise feedback. kind of feedback you’ll need will be contingent on the design phase. Make sure you ask specific questions for immediate feedback that will give you precise guidelines. Also when you need feedback on the color you choose and you ask “What is your opinion?” you might get feedback about the typeface.
Make sure you are able to support your design choices: Prepare to answer questions which will discuss the motivations of your design choices. If you have to provide details, examples or any other information be prepared ahead of time and be confident about your decisions.
Find constructive criticism Find out what’s not appealing or what could be improved in your design with help from professionals or other people with design expertise.
Skyscanner’s redesign prompts a general type of feedback
Design teams are not always able to react to the feedback of their customers. But, in the event of a brand rebrand the stakes are very high to make sure it’s done right. In the case of Skyscanner made the decision to undertake the process of a revamp they employed Canva to develop a new branding aesthetic and tone of voice.
“The result was a successful timed launch of the brand. The public reaction was that was overwhelmingly positive. something that isn’t often seen with major rebrands. However, the negative reaction is usually the most dominant and most loud.” John Cowan Senior Design Manager at Skyscanner
Each time a new design was created, Skyscanner took advantage of the Canva commenting and tagging features to provide each other with feedback about the process of design. Rebranding can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming, however the workflow for graphic design along with the process of feedback Skyscanner implemented using Canva was a seamless process from beginning to end.
If Skyscanner’s rebranding had not gone well or received feedback that was negative from the users the company could be tempted to reconsider its branding choices. Similar to how your design team process internal feedback and revises it, your team might require a strategy for major responses from your customers.
Follow the design of workflows
When you and your colleagues become more comfortable with your workflow for design it’s tempting to take a shortcut or put things put off until later. But, if you’re trying to increase efficiency and avoid mistakes within your work, you should create an outline of your workflow. Ensure that you follow the design process to ensure that you don’t operate in a blind spot and miss an important step.
If you feel that avoiding the use of shortcuts or other omissions could improve the efficiency of your team, you can suggest an overhaul of your team’s workflow processes. You are able to always enhance the current process of graphic design. Be sure to avoid making a mistake for the sake of time savings. You might find that your time saved today turns into wasted time later, and lots of headaches that you had hoped for. Staying with your workflow for design can boost your team’s efficiency and perform to the best of your ability.
