Artwork approval is a tough process.
There’s timeline pressure. Coordination is important. And errors lead to rework and loss of time and money. Hence, what brands and design agencies need are seamless workflows, to make artwork approvals more efficient and reduce production costs.
Artwork management helps to:
- Speed up time-to-market
- Improve project management
- Reduce artwork revisions
- Get easy access to resources
All of this can be made possible with the right automated artwork management software.
Importance of artwork management in packaging artwork process
Several brands often use traditional channels of communication and proofing for artwork management. It could be emails, calls, messages, ad-hoc requests that happen between teams. All of these can be difficult to track and error-prone.
By using a platform, like Artwork Flow, you can plan, manage, and proof packaging artwork for brands right from design and ideation to artwork approval. It also facilitates collaboration between teams and contributors.
Artwork Flow is a cloud-based platform that can streamline complex artwork management processes.
Artwork Flow can help with:
1. Bye-bye chaos: Create customizable workflows
The steps that make up the artwork approval process define the workflow. This sequence could be subjective for every brand packaging.
With an artwork management system, you can create your own custom workflow, add checklists, and set the sequence of tasks across different departments. This helps teams get a bird’s eye view of the process and understand their priorities better.
2. Track status like a pro with project management
Measuring progress is important. Tracking team performance can help avoid delays in the project timeline.
Artwork management software makes project tracking simple. Since the tool is used by all teams and departments working on the artwork, project managers can pinpoint bottlenecks, anticipate hurdles, and plan more accurately, to meet deadlines.
3. Catch any error with artwork proofing tools
Before finalizing any packaging artwork for printing, it’s essential to thoroughly verify it. Even the slightest variation in color or font can cause a product rollback. Hence, the brand packaging artwork needs to be cross-checked before full-scale production.
Online proofing tools can help to proof artwork files instantly in terms of measuring design elements, extracting fonts, and the colors used in the artwork. Such tools go beyond manual checks and do a better job of reducing the risk of errors. Other artwork proofing tools such as version compare, barcode verification, spell check, and more ensure no errors slip through during the artwork approval process and ensure 100% accuracy.
4. Collaboration seamlessly between stakeholders
Several teams - marketing, legal, finance - are part of artwork approval while designing the brand packaging artwork. And the design team is the only common link. It can happen that change requests made by one team could be missed by others and mess up the approval process or delay product marketing.
Artwork management software makes the process seamless. Online tools help internal teams and even external agencies comment, annotate, and see whose artwork approval is pending by bringing in transparency.
5. Keep it together, thanks to version tracking
Having multiple versions of an artwork file is inevitable. But organizing and tracking them is important. Especially since teams work on multiple projects and several files.
Version tracking or version control allows access to the revision history of a design file. Every time a designer edits the artwork, the update is time-stamped. This eliminates the hassle of searching for the design in a vast media library.
Version tracking brings in clarity on design iterations. It also lets managers devise measures to speed up the artwork approval process and roll out the brand packaging faster.
6. No more lost files with digital asset management
Traditionally, the designer’s computer is the warehouse of all artwork files. Only the final versions of packaging designs are shared across different departments. This creates dependency and a huge bottleneck in the artwork approval process.
A digital asset management library facilitates the organization of artwork files with metadata management and more filters. It offers cloud storage to safely and securely keep packaging artwork files. The library allows easy access to files by reducing request-receive time. And, helps designers collaborate and receive feedback on artworks in a centralized place.
7. Nail branding with automated brand compliance
Maintaining brand consistency is no easy feat. Wrong logos, off-brand fonts, or inconsistent colors can damage your image.
With artwork management software, you can automate brand compliance checks. Save your guidelines in the platform, set up custom rules, and catch errors instantly.
Endnote: Your turn
Operational issues, miscommunication, and lack of transparency are roadblocks to a brand's packaging artwork approval processes. An artwork management software like Artwork Flow makes working in teams better. By providing a single platform to manage files, collaborate, get feedback, share resources, track progress, it drastically improves the overall operational efficiency.
What are the challenges that you face while approving your brand packaging artwork? Are there any particular tools you’re looking for? Do you think proofing tools like PDF Compare, Font Finder, Color Extractor can help you?
Book a demo with our experts today.
