As a graphic designer, what are your most time-consuming tasks?

Question

Companies who advertise are starting to realize that leveraging multiple channels, with creative variations across many sizes, helps improve overall campaign performance. Having a matrix of creative variations improves Return-On-Ad-Spend ( ROAS ).

However, the downside of producing a matrix of creative is that this burden falls on graphic designers. Using traditional tools, like Photoshop or Canva, can be time-consuming, and somewhat mundane, to take a custom design and produce it 40 times with minor tweaks for each size.

If you would automate certain parts of the creative production process, what would save you the most time and heartache?

Thank you for your valuable time,
Eric

Ana-Maria Grigoriu · Accepted Answer

Hi Eric, for me it’s chaotic feedback. 
Those clients that give feedback that feels too general are just throwing the work they should’ve done by themselves on you. This is time consuming for both me and the client.

Every step in the design process needs feedback on a more general level but also the one that gets onto the specifics and all the small details of the project. Being particular and on point makes the process move much faster.

Vedran Rasic · Answer

I am literally sitting across from my wife who is a graphic designer:

= Client communication by far #1 :)

@aleksandra_fajfric

Vedran Rasic · Answer

@aleksandra_fajfric @creativautomatc it's mainly the back and forth. Writing correspondence. Instead of focusing on designing. Video (loom) helps quite a bit in explaining and shortening the cycle.

Eric Gilmore · Answer

@jan_beisheim I absolutely love what you've done and you got my upvote, for sure! Beautiful work, dude.

Eric Gilmore · Answer

@aleksandra_fajfric @vedranrasic Thank you so much for your response. With client communication, would you be able to vent a bit more on what is challenging and what you wish you could have? Thanks so much!

Eric Gilmore · Answer

@aleksandra_fajfric @vedranrasic do you, or your wife, think that tools would be able to help this process? rather than the client writing / recording video, would anything else help? giving them access to markup tools or adjust the designs themselves? thanks for your valuable time!

holly93 · Answer

Portrait retouching is the most time-consuming task since I need to deal with all flaws and defects in portraits and other adjustments. Usually, I use professional tools like Photoshop, but it’s not very efficient. Then I found many excellent AI photo enhancers on the market, and luckily, I ended up using VanceAI https://vanceai.com/. This photo enhancer is based on AI technology, so it can very accurately find flaws in photos. For example, the AI Image Sharpener function https://vanceai.com/sharpen-ai/ can accurately find the blurred part of the face in the picture and perform processing to improve clarity. At the same time, it also has a series of functions such as old photo restoration https://vanceai.com/old-photo-re..., background removal, and image quality enhancement. This is a one-stop image processing website. Highly recommended.

Jan Beisheim · Answer

Hi Eric, I think we have invented what you are searching for. Just launched Kittl today. You can simply change the format/ size and download for any use case. What's great for collaborating with clients - they can access your file directly in Kittl and suggest changes. Have a look and let me know what you think: www.producthunt.com/posts/kittl

Wayne Joseph · Answer

Personally, it takes me a lot of time to come up with an idea, something new and unusual. It seems to me that I am a + xlroshy specialist in terms of implementation, but in terms of ideas, I always have a tight time. I try to peep them on Pinterest or on sites like https://www.theprojectgirl.com/

Jan Beisheim · Answer

@hapsize awesome Eric, so glad to hear it's working for you :) If you have any feedback/ feature request along the way please feel free to ping me on Twitter any time. We build our feature road-map based of user feedback.

Eric Gilmore · Answer

@anagrigoriu Thank you so much, Ana-Maria. It sounds like there is a significant difference between general feedback and specific feedback? Are there certain kinds of feedback that are more helpful than others? I would love to learn more about these pain points. Thank you so much for your time.

Fariz Hakim · Answer

I'll agree with the client/stakeholder communication. What I suggest is to have a clear process (after rough draft -> fine draft -> 1st revision etc. Whatever it might be) and if they still want some changes after the agreed number of revisions, charge them more.

This might be trickier if you work as in-house designer.

As a graphic designer, what are your most time-consuming tasks?

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