If you currently work as a designer or have another creative career in-house, you know it. The in-house creative accomplishes more with less. With over 15 years working as a designer in-house, I've learned a few tricks of the trade that have made me a little bit more productive. Unlike some articles on the internet, I won't concentrate on the use of apps or to-do lists. Instead, I will share my designer tips on accomplishing work swiftly and efficiently.
Know Your Stuff
The number one secret to productivity is not really a secret. You can accomplish more when you know your stuff inside out. There are multiple ways to accomplish a task, find the one that works best for you. You can take workshops, go to conferences, or search the internet for videos of what you want to learn. I highly recommend Lynda and Skillshare as learning resources; in addition, there are also plenty of books you can read to accomplish the same. Everyone learns things differently, the key to your productivity is finding what works for you and to keep learning so your skills are not left behind.
Create a Template for Success
You might think I'm kidding, but I'm serious. In order to produce in-house, you'll need a formula for success, and creating templates is part of that formula. The templates will free your time to create complicated projects and will allow you to hand-off easy projects to a non-designer. You can also create templates for your own personal use. This is where a Branding Manual becomes much more than just rules. By using some manuals, you can create layouts with grids at different sizes, you can save color files, and styles.
Reuse and Recycle
We've all done it. We created a million and one versions of a design for a client. And some of those versions were so incredibly bad to us that we refused to show those to our client. Because you're an inhouse designer you have the power to reuse materials used in a different year. If you have an event and are crunched for time, the best thing to do is to start from something perhaps a design used a different year. You can update that design a bit by using a different cover graphic and/or a change in color. The point is to change the design enough so that it's noticeably different but the same.
In terms of recycling, you can use a discarded design for a different client. Yes, you heard me right. Remember those designs that a client never saw because you decided that there were other better choices, well now's the time to dig those designs from the past and start from there. And if there's something particularly wrong with that design, then you have the benefit of having been away from the project so long that you can easily make changes.
Take a Break
Burn out decreases productivity. It seems counter-productive but you might benefit from a break to be a bit more productive. Our minds are not meant to be constantly working without a break. If you give yourself space, you'll be more likely to get that work waiting for you completed quicker. I schedule breaks into my schedule.
I hope you learned a tip or two from this post. I'll keep sharing what I've learned. If you'd like me to cover any topic, please let me know below.
