During the artwork label management and proofing process, teams need to collaborate on label creation and collate feedback from different teams. So, clarity in communication and ease of collaboration are integral in such situations.

But this is easier said than done as brands don’t recognize they have a collaboration problem and overlook errors, which increases re-printing costs, recalls, and fines.

So in this article, we’ll discuss why team collaboration is sometimes ineffective and what brands can do to eliminate this problem.

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How inefficient collaboration affects your brand

Here’s how inefficient collaboration affects the brand’s bigger picture:

• Product launch delays: Multiple revisions and lack of coordination among team members cause artwork delays, leading to launch delays.
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• Compliance issues: If there aren’t established checklists and workflows, there’s a high chance that the legal team misses important details that can result in product recalls and fines.
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• Decreased productivity: When there’s confusion, your team spends more time on artwork revisions than creating the label itself. As a result, your team can’t focus on important tasks, and your productivity drops.

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3 reasons for ineffective collaboration

Here are some of the most common reasons for ineffective collaboration within an artwork label team.  

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1. Adherence to traditional proofing processes

In most organizations, once the artwork is complete, hard copies of the label are sent to different teams for feedback. Each team marks feedback on their copy, and it’s sent back to the design team so they can make the necessary changes.

This works well when there are only a few labels to proof every month. But for larger companies that create 40-50 labels a month, the manual proofing method only creates confusion as team members can’t track if they’ve incorporated all the feedback into the artwork. As a result, the number of revisions and edits keeps increasing and causes delays.

With an artwork management system, all collaborators can give feedback on an artwork simultaneously, and designers can keep track of all the feedback because it’s in a single place. This reduces the number of revisions and delays.
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2. Lack of proper communication channels

Organizations that don’t use manual proofing methods rely on project management software, emails, and WhatsApp to communicate changes and assign work to different teams. This becomes inefficient and cumbersome after a while because there’s a high chance that tasks and feedback get lost in unending email and chat threads.

So, it’s difficult to track accountability, and teams can’t figure out which member is responsible for completing a task. Plus, it’s impossible to find the latest artwork version because the team has to look through numerous files and threads.

An artwork management system centralizes all your assets so team members can keep track of edits made to the artwork and find the latest version of any artwork label easily.
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3. Absence of established checklists

When brands are working on a large volume of artwork every month, they are bound to miss a few steps without checklists, leading to a lot of edits, frustration, and delays, which ultimately results in the company’s loss.

An artwork management system comes with checklists for each task, so every member moves to the next task only after ticking off all the boxes on the list. This reduces instances where members overlook important details and ensures everyone does an internal QC before submitting the label for feedback. As a result, there’s less back and forth and delays.
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Collaborate better with Artwork Flow

Here’s how Artwork Flow improves internal collaboration and helps reduce the number of revisions.
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1. Consolidate feedback seamlessly

Most artworks go through multiple stages of approval and are reviewed by multiple teams before they see the light of the day. Artwork Flow collates feedback from all teams in a single place so no feedback can slip through the cracks.  

The feature is similar to Google Docs, so you can add annotations and markups to highlight areas that need work. For example, Chitale, an Indian snacks brand, saved over 1000 hours and improved their collaboration after using Artwork Flow’s feedback features.

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2. Centralize assets

Your team no longer has to spend hours looking for a specific artwork version to send to printers or internal stakeholders. Artwork Flow has Packaging Asset Management (PAM) built into it which allows you to store all the artworks, briefs, and reference files in the same place.

This allows you to track different artwork versions of the same label and compare artwork versions to check whether the suggested feedback was incorporated into the artwork.

For instance, LesserEvil, a snacking brand, had to comb through emails to find the latest artwork version, and their legal team would get confused with artwork for different projects because many of them worked on similar projects.

After using Artwork Flow’s PAM features, they went from sorting through the confusion to approving 40-50 artworks a month to keep up with their expanding product line.

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Note: You can also restrict access to certain files in the library depending on the member’s responsibilities. For instance, if you’re a food and beverage company, designers working on your new snacking range won’t have access to assets in the “frozen foods” folder.
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3. Create automated workflows

Artwork Flow allows you to create automated workflows and assign tasks to all team members. You can either choose from different templates or create your own workflows, so everyone in your team knows what they’re accountable for.

Once you’ve created a workflow, you can also assign a checklist for each task so every member can ensure that they haven’t missed any important details. This way, you can maintain compliance and reduce revision time.

For example, Havmor, a popular ice cream brand, faced artwork approval delays because their endless email loops wouldn’t allow them to track accountability. After switching to Artwork Flow and using its workflow and checklist features, the brand reduced its artwork approval time from 7 days to 3 days.

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Note: You can also add a new member to the workflow at any project stage by replacing the task assignee in that stage. This way, you won’t have to spend hours getting them up to speed on the project, and it’ll continue running smoothly.
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Wrapping up

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When it comes to label creation and proofing, collaboration and clarity of communication play an important role in shipping artwork on time. Since most companies rely on manual proofing methods and use generic tools like Google Drive, emails, and WhatsApp to proof their artwork, most of their feedback is lost, resulting in a lot of confusion.

There’s also a high chance that reviewers might overlook important compliance details, which results in recalls. The best way to eliminate these problems is to invest in an artwork management tool like Artwork Flow that helps you consolidate feedback, create checklists, and workflows to collaborate efficiently during the label creation and proofing process.

See for yourself how Artwork Flow can improve your collaboration — talk to one of our product experts today.

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