If you work in design, you’re probably juggling a lot on top of your projects: coordinating with your team, liaising with clients and stakeholders, chasing late feedback…
The list goes on.
It’s exhausting.
And worse, every single project management task, delay, or miscommunication saps the time and energy you’d prefer to spend on design work.
A lot of this comes down to tools. When you don’t have the right ones, the cost of broken communication and project delays starts to mount.
Slow approvals destroy project momentum. With a proofing software for designers, you can streamline the process and reclaim time for creative work.
Understanding Online Proofing for Graphic Designers
Design-focused online proofing tools let you view files, leave targeted feedback, review revisions, and give or receive approvals, all from one intuitive interface.
You don’t have to juggle multiple copies of a PDF with increasingly messy markups or work out exactly what you’re meant to do from a vague description in an email. Nor will you have to sort through a messy history in your creation tool that wasn’t purpose-built to gather feedback in an organized way.
Unlike the platforms you use for content creation or file-sharing, proofing platforms are specifically built to gather, centralize, and organize the kind of feedback your clients need to provide.
Features will include markup tools with threaded comments, robust version control, and wide format support.
What Design Teams Should Look for in a Purpose-Built Online Proofing Tool
Many graphic design tools have some proofing elements. But there are also important limitations with those tools. Here are some of the features you should be looking for when identifying the best collaborative design proofing software for you or your team.
Flexibility on File Types
Most collaborative design tools offer some form of markup. But a tool like ReviewStudio offers support for all the file types you work with, like images, videos, websites, audio, and multi-page documents – all in one place.
Tracking Feedback
While it’s easy to leave feedback, it’s nearly impossible to come back to it and see a clear history of the feedback. Look for features that add accountability and make gathering and tracking feedback simpler. This is done with features like media-specific markup, threaded comments, and robust versioning.
Comparing Files
With any tools, you can put two files next to each other… and play spot the difference. If you are really sharp, you might catch most of the differences. Alternatively, in purpose-built proofing tool, you can take advantage of difference-highlighting tools, that quickly show any differences between two files.
Easy Sharing
Sending clients to your favorite creative tools is not always intuitive. You (and your clients) need features that will make sharing with reviewers or guest approvers easier, such as the ability to customize access, set review/approval deadlines, provide intuitive tools, and track approvals.
Simple Approvals
How do you manage approvals? You want your clients to be able to give quick approvals. And have the entire history of approvals at your fingertips – centralized with the creative itself for future reference and accountability.
Internal – External Privacy
Can you have internal-only conversations on your creative without your client seeing? Advanced privacy features make sure internal-only conversations aren’t viewable externally.
Automation
Going to the next level, creation tools struggle with approval management. ReviewStudio’s automated workflow routing will take a lot of the heavy lifting out of keeping complex workflows moving.
Design Feedback Nightmares Solved by Online Proofing
So what does an online proofing tool accomplish for design teams? Here are just some of the graphic design proofing nightmares you can avoid with an online proofing system.
Endless Email and Comment Threads
We’ve all been there: desperately skimming back through a seemingly endless, convoluted email chain, trying to find a particular request or comment.
With online proofing, every piece of creative feedback is logged, tracked, and easy to come back to.
Feedback Out of Context
When was the last time you dealt with a vague comment that was impossible to action because it wasn’t clear which part of the work it referred to? Probably on your last project. Though, hopefully not.
Online proofing makes it straightforward for clients to leave precise feedback, in context, leaving markups directly on the file in precisely the right place.
File Version Chaos
Ever had that horrible moment of realization when it clicks that a client has left feedback – or even approved – an old version of a file?
Online proofing introduces a whole new level of version control and history. It presents everyone with the most recent version of a file while previous versions are locked, stored, and accessible if you need to look back or compare.
Missed Approvals and Delays
How often have your projects stalled because someone is late providing feedback or sign-off? There are only so many polite follow-ups you can send.
Online proofing tools like ReviewStudio enable you to set deadlines and automatic reminders, taking (some of) the pressure of chasing off your shoulders.
Benefits of Online Proofing for Designers at Every Stage
Proofing software for graphic designers makes for smoother collaborations, whether you’re working with your team, other internal stakeholders, or clients. By providing a centralized space, it means nobody is leaving feedback in a silo, and no important insights get missed.
As well as these more general benefits, it provides specific advantages at every stage of the design process.
Concept and Draft Stage
It enables you to easily share early visuals for initial (usually internal) feedback.
You can use annotations and discussions to clear up any ambiguity and align on direction. You can even collaborate in real time, reducing the chances of miscommunication and cutting down on the time you have to wait before you can proceed to the next phase.
For the busy creative director, for example, they can take an hour a day to review all outstanding creative asynchronously, rather than having to book a bunch of disruptive meetings. Likewise, it speeds up the process for the designer waiting for feedback on a range of design projects.
Integrated labels, star ratings, comparisons, and more, make selections much more collaborative. And internal privacy means your conversations can stay private.
Revision and Refinement
Because feedback is more targeted and always viewed in context, it accelerates the revision process and reduces the likelihood you’ll have to redo changes due to misunderstandings.
Once you’re ready to show the updated version, you can push it out for review, without having to worry that anyone will open the wrong file. With ReviewStudio, you use compare mode to see the two versions side-by-side to properly measure the impact of the revisions.
Review & Approval Stage
When it comes time to present to the client, you’ll be delivering your designs in an organized way that is intuitive and shows well.
Clients can provide feedback and approvals from the same user-friendly interface, making reviewing quicker and seamless.
And because discussion is straightforward and feedback is more precise, there will be less back-and-forth, and wasteful meetings, which is not only great news for productivity but for client satisfaction too.
And if you have a particularly complex workflow, design proofing software can eliminate uncertainty by automating the approval process. ReviewStudio enables you to create multiple different workflows to suit different project workflows.
Proofing Allows Designers to Spend More Time on Creativity
Online proofing for graphic design teams eliminates a lot of the revision process mess that can take creatives away from design work. It streamlines the process of gathering feedback, making revisions, and getting that final sign-off, ultimately allowing you to devote more time to doing what you were hired for – delivering great creative work.
